Plants are multicellular eukaryotes that have cell walls made of cellulose. They develop from multicellular embryos and carry out photosynthesis using the green pigments chlorophyll a and b.

diploid, or spore-producing, phase of an organism

haploid, or gamete-producing, phase of an organism

The lives of plants center on the need for sunlight, water and minerals, gas exchange, and the transport of water and nutrients throughout the plant body.

The first plants evolved from an organism much like the multicellular green algae living today.

Bryophytes have life cycles that depend on water for reproduction. Lacking vascular tissue, these plants can draw up water by osmosis only a few centimeters above the ground.

Bryophytes include mosses, liverworts, and hornworts.

in mosses, a long, thin cell that anchors the moss to the ground and absorbs water and minerals from the surrounding soil

nonvascular plant; examples are mosses and their relatives