AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -What is gymnosperm? Gymnosperm is a seed-producing plant that includes conifers, cycads, gnetophytes and ginkgos. They do not produce flowers or fruits and have naked seeds.

Detailed explanation-2: -gymnosperm, any vascular plant that reproduces by means of an exposed seed, or ovule-unlike angiosperms, or flowering plants, whose seeds are enclosed by mature ovaries, or fruits. The seeds of many gymnosperms (literally, “naked seeds”) are borne in cones and are not visible until maturity.

Detailed explanation-3: -In gymnosperms (plants with “naked seeds”-such as conifers, cycads, and ginkgo), the ovules are not enclosed in an ovary but lie exposed on leaflike structures, the megasporophylls.

Detailed explanation-4: -Cycads. Cycads, in the phylum Cycadophyta, are also gymnosperms. They have large, finely-divided leaves and grow as short shrubs and trees in tropical regions. Like conifers, they produce cones, but the seed cones and pollen cones are always on separate plants (Figure below).