Seed Plants

Recall cards on seed plants: the evolutionary advantages of pollen and seeds, the reduction of the gametophyte, and the fossil timeline from progymnosperms through gymnosperm dominance to the rise of the angiosperms; the gymnosperms (conifers, cycads, ginkgo, and gnetophytes) with their naked seeds, cones, tracheid wood, and wind-and-insect pollination; the angiosperms (flower structure, the carpel and stamen, double fertilization and endosperm, fruit, and the split among basal angiosperms, monocots, and eudicots); and the roles of seed plants as food, fiber, fuel, and medicine, their coevolution with pollinators and herbivores, and their part in stabilizing ecosystems.