BOTANY WITH THE BASICS OF HYDROBOTANY (AQUATIC PLANTS OF UKRAINE) - B.Ye. Yakubenko - 2011

X. SEED PLANTS

Division Pinophyta (Gymnosperms)

Gymnosperms are higher seed plants in which the sporophyte is dominant over the gametophyte, and the gametophytes develop directly on the sporophyte.

Sporophytes are predominantly woody plants with monopodial branching of the stem, a megaphyllous or microphyllous line of leaf evolution, and a tracheid-based, or rarely vessel-based, Vascular System.

These plants are heterosporous. The male gametophyte is a pollen grain that develops within microsporangia (pollen sacs) on microsporophylls. The female gametophyte forms within the nucellus of the ovule. Both the ovule and the resulting seed are exposed openly on seed scales, which is why these plants are called gymnosperms. The division is divided into six classes: seed ferns, cycads, bennettites, gnetophytes, ginkgoes, and conifers.

The total number of gymnosperm species is approximately 800. Aquatic species are absent among them.



Last update: 07/08/2026

Editorial and Educational Adaptation: This material has been compiled based on the primary/original source text. The project team performed an editorial review, corrected technical inaccuracies, structured sections, and adapted the content for an educational format.

What was processed:

  • elimination of formatting defects (OCR errors, structural breaks, corrupted characters);
  • editorial organization of content;
  • standardization of terminology in accordance with academic sources;
  • verification of factual statements against the original source text.

All mentions of the author, publication year, and origin of the primary text have been preserved in accordance with the source.