Video Transcript
A flower with a long stem that
contains a specialized system for transporting water and sugars has been found. What phylum, Bryophyta or
Tracheophyta, is this plant most likely to belong to?
Plants belong to kingdom Plantae, a
group of organisms consisting of around 400,000 different species. Kingdom Plantae can be subdivided
into two main groups: vascular plants and nonvascular plants.
Nonvascular plants are sometimes
categorized as a phylum, or subdivision, called Bryophyta. This division of kingdom Plantae
includes organisms like mosses. The bryophytes that belong to this
group do not have complex or specialized vascular tissues for transporting materials
around the plant’s body.
Vascular plants are sometimes
categorized as a phylum, or subdivision, called Tracheophyta. This division of kingdom Plantae
includes organisms like flowering plants, which are otherwise known as
angiosperms. These plants do have specialized
vascular tissues, which are cells joined together into a network of tubes called the
xylem and the phloem. The xylem is used to transport
water and mineral ions from the roots, sometimes along a long stem, to the rest of
the plant. The phloem transports other
nutrients, like sugars, mainly from the leaves, where most of them are produced,
both up and down the plant stem to all the plant cells that might require them. This provides us with the
information we need to answer this question.
As the plant described in the
question has a flower, a long stem, and specialized systems for transporting water
and sugars, it most likely belongs to the phylum Tracheophyta.
