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Nonvascular plants, which include mosses, liverworts, and hornworts, lack a system for delivering nutrients inside their bodies. Learn about the definition and characteristics of nonvascular plants, as well as some examples of nonvascular plants and their importance to the ecosystem.
Most people would include the words green, tall, leaves, branches, stems, and flowers in their description. Although this is what most people imagine when they think of a plant, there are two types of plants: vascular plants and nonvascular plants, and only one of them corresponds to this common image of a plant.
Vascular plants, which include most trees and flowering plants, have vascular vessels that transport water and food throughout the plant. The phloem, which transports food, and the xylem, which transports water, are both found in vascular plants. Nonvascular plants are small, straightforward plants that lack a vascular system. They have no phloem or xylem.
Features of non-vascular plants
- The absence of vascular tissue distinguishes non-vascular plants from other members of the Kingdom Plantae.
- Vascular tissue is made up of vessels known as xylem and phloem. Xylem vessels carry water and minerals throughout the plant, whereas phloem vessels carry sugar (a byproduct of photosynthesis) and other nutrients.
- Non-vascular plants do not grow very tall and typically remain low to the ground due to the lack of features such as a multi-layered epidermis or bark. As a result, they don’t require a vascular system to carry water and nutrients.
- Osmosis, diffusion, and cytoplasmic streaming transport metabolites and other nutrients between and within cells.
- The movement of cytoplasm within cells for the transport of nutrients, organelles, and other cellular materials is known as cytoplasmic streaming
Difference between non-vascular plants and vascular plants
It is thought that non-vascular and vascular plants diverged around 450 million years ago.
S.NO | Vascular Plant | Non-Vascular Plant |
1 | Water- and nutrient-conducting tissue called xylem is found in vascular plants. | Non-vascular plants and bryophytes do not have xylem or vascular tissue to transport nutrients. |
2 | Bryophytes rely on surface absorption through their leaves for survival. | Non-vascular plants, unlike vascular plants, lack actual roots in favour of rhizoids. They use these rhizoids as anchors and absorb minerals and water through their leaf surfaces. |
3 | vascular plants have an internal water system | Non-vascular plants have an external water system. |
4 | Vascular plants exist as diploid sporophytes during their photosynthetic phase. | Non-vascular plants, on the other hand, have short-lived sporophytes and thus rely on their haploid gametophyte incarnation for photosynthetic activity. Chlorophyll is found in the majority of bryophytes. |
What are mosses?
Mosses are nonvascular plants in the phylum Bryophyta. Mosses, more than liverworts and hornworts, closely resemble vascular plants among the bryophytes. Some mosses, like vascular plants, have stems that conduct water internally. They do not cultivate flowers. Mosses have been discovered in at least 15,000 species, making them the most diverse type of non-vascular plant. Mosses have rhizoids, which are small root-like parts of their stem, but they do not conduct nutrients like true roots in vascular plants. Mosses absorb nutrients through their small leaves, which branch out from stems rather than through rhizoids. Rainwater runs across the moss and is absorbed by it.
What are liverworts?
The phylum Marchantiophyta includes liverworts, which are nonvascular plants. Wort is an English word that means “small plant.” Liverworts got their name from being a small plant that looks like a liver, and they were once used as herbal medicine for the liver. Liverworts do not produce flowers. Liverworts have two gametophyte forms: leafy shoots on stems (leafy liverworts) or a flat or wrinkled green sheet or thallus (those liverworts). The thallus can be thick, as in some Marchantia species, or thin. The thallus cells perform a variety of functions. The small leaves of liverworts lack ribs.
What are hornworts?
Hornworts are nonvascular plants that belong to the phylum Anthocerotophyta. Hornworts do not have flowers and get their name from their spore capsules, which are the sporophyte part of the plant that looks like a horn growing out of the thallus. These lobed, branchlike thalli house guard cells in the plant’s gametophyte portion. These thalli, like liverworts, have flat, green sheets. The thalli of some species are rosette-shaped, while those of others are more branched. Except for the genus Dendroceros, the thalli of most hornwort species are several cells thick. Hornworts, unlike mosses and liverworts, do not have leaves. Rhizoids grow beneath their thalli and serve as substrate anchors rather than true roots. Hornworts disperse their spores through water over time.
Conclusion
Nonvascular plants, which include mosses, liverworts, and hornworts, lack a system for delivering nutrients inside their bodies. Vascular plants, which include most trees and flowering plants, have vascular vessels that transport water and food throughout the plant. The phloem, which transports food, and the xylem, which transports water, are both found in vascular plants. The absence of vascular tissue distinguishes non-vascular plants from other members of the Kingdom Plantae. Mosses have rhizoids, which are small root-like parts of their stem, but they do not conduct nutrients like true roots in vascular plants.
