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Why can ferns grow upright and moss can t?
Moss plants are small, but ferns can grow as tall as small trees. Explain why this is so. Vascualr tissue supports a tall plant and carries water and nutrients from, the soil the plant’s upper region. Thus ferns, which have vascular tissue, can grow tall, whereas mosses, which lack vasucualr tissue cannot grow tall.
Why is moss not a plant?
Mosses are non-flowering plants which produce spores and have stems and leaves, but don’t have true roots. Mosses, and their cousins liverworts and hornworts, are classified as Bryophyta (bryophytes) in the plant kingdom.
What makes moss different from other plants?
Unlike most other plants, mosses do not have vascular tissue (special kind of plant tissue that is used to transport water and nutrients through the plant). Because of that, mosses lack root, stem and flowers. Mosses use structures called rhizoids (which look like miniature roots) to attach themselves to the ground.
Why do ferns grow bigger than moss?
The reason for this is that both moss and fern species are relatively primitive plants that are only imperfectly adapted to a terrestrial environment. Ferns have both roots and vascular tissue and therefore, can grow larger than moss species, but like the mosses, ferns require water for reproduction.
Why can ferns grow larger than moss?
Ferns can grow taller than mosses because ferns are vascular plants and mosses are non-vascular.
Is moss a symbiotic?
They are complex organisms formed by a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an algae or cyanobacteria (or, in some cases, both). That key difference — one is a plant and one is not — is also the key to telling a moss from a lichen when you see them in the wild.
What is a true moss?
True mosses (Phylum Bryophyta) are non-vascular plants that typically grow between 1-10 cm tall, usually growing densely together in carpet-like structures. Like liverworts and hornworts, true mosses attach to their substrate via rhizoids and live a gametophyte-dominated life cycle.
Does moss have true leaves?
Mosses and liverworts are lumped together as bryophytes, plants lacking true vascular tissues, and sharing a number of other primitive traits. They also lack true stems, roots, or leaves, though they have cells that perform these general functions.
What makes moss unique?
Mosses have several characteristics that distinguish them from other bryophytes. Hornworts and mosses are unique bryophytes in that they have stomata, cells specialized for photosynthetic gas exchange, on their sporophytes. Liverwort sporophytes lack stomata. In addition mosses do not have true leaves or stems.