Plant

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Temporal range: Early Cambrian to recent, but see text, 5200Ma Pre O S D C P T J K
Pg

Scientific classification Domain: (unranked): Eukaryota Archaeplastida Plantae

Haeckel, 1866[1][verification needed]

Kingdom:

Divisions Green algae

Chlorophyta Charophyta

Land plants (embryophytes)

Non-vascular land plants (bryophytes)

o o o o

Marchantiophytaliverworts Anthocerotophytahornworts Bryophytamosses Horneophytopsida

Vascular plants (tracheophytes) o Rhyniophytarhyniophytes o Zosterophyllophytazosterophylls o Lycopodiophytaclubmosses o Trimerophytophyta

o o

trimerophytes Pteridophytaferns and horsetails Progymnospermophyta

Seed plants (spermatophytes) o Pteridospermatophytaseed ferns o Pinophytaconifers o Cycadophytacycads o Ginkgophytaginkgo o Gnetophytagnetae o Magnoliophytaflowering plants

Nematophytes Synonyms

Chloroplastida Adl et al., 2005 Viridiplantae Cavalier-Smith 1981 Chlorobionta Jeffrey 1982, emend. Bremer 1985,
emend. Lewis and McCourt 2004

Chlorobiota Kendrick and Crane 1997

Plants, also called green plants (Viridiplantae in Latin), are living multicellular organisms of the kingdom Plantae. They form a clade that includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns, clubmosses, hornworts, liverworts and mosses, as well as, depending on definition, the green algae. Plants exclude the red and brown algae, and some seaweeds such as kelp, the fungi, archaea and bacteria. Green plants have cell walls with cellulose and characteristically obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis using chlorophyll contained in chloroplasts, which gives them

their green color. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce normal amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are also characterized by sexual reproduction, modular and indeterminate growth, and an alternation of generations, although asexual reproduction is common. Precise numbers are difficult to determine, but as of 2010, there are thought to be 300315 thousand species of plants, of which the great majority, some 260290 thousand, are seed plants (see the table below).[2] Green plants provide most of the world's molecular oxygen[citation needed] and are the basis of most of the earth's ecologies, especially on land. Plants described as grains, fruits and vegetables form mankind's basic foodstuffs, and have been domesticated for millennia. Plants serve as ornaments and, until recently and in great variety, they have served as the source of most medicines and drugs. Their scientific study is known as botany, a branch of biology.