EVERYDAY SCIENCE

Detailed explanation-1: -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: -Gymnosperms are plants producing seeds that are not encapsulated within the fruit or the ovary. Gymnosperm seeds are open to the air and directly pollinated.

Detailed explanation-3: -Cycads are gymnosperms distinguished by crowns of large pinnately compound leaves and by cones, which are typically borne at the end of the trunk in the centre of whorled branches. Some cycads have tall unbranched trunks with an armourlike appearance; others have partially buried stems with swollen (tuberous) trunks.

Detailed explanation-4: -Although it has broad leaves like angiosperms, ginkgo is a gymnosperm, closely related to cycads and conifers, because it produces “naked seeds” on its branches rather than seeds enclosed in flowers and fruit.

Detailed explanation-5: -Consisting of 1, 079 species (Christenhusz & Byng 2016) the conifers are the largest of the three gymnosperm lineages. They are trees or shrubs with simple, often needle-like or scale-like leaves that are either alternate or borne in clusters on short spur-shoots.