bio

Embryophyte

The precise term for "land plant" — the whole group comprising mosses, liverworts, hornworts, clubmosses, ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants. The name comes from the diagnostic feature: the zygote is retained and nourished inside the parent body as a multicellular embryo rather than released. That detail sounds small and is not: retaining the zygote is the step that leads to the spore-making generation and eventually to the seed. The term is needed because "plant" in ordinary speech is far looser, and is often applied to photosynthetic organisms that are no relation at all.