Gymnospermous are the real live minerals which appeared on the earth more than three hundred fifty million years ago, and today this group of seed plants includes about one thousand types which grow on our planet now.
Instruction
1. The main difference gymnospermous from other plants is that they have no flowers and fruits, but there are semyazachatka who have the cycle of development. Gymnospermous – ancestors of modern angiospermous plants, and their many types, as well as dinosaurs, did not live up to now.
2. The most part of types of modern gymnospermous belongs to the class of coniferous, these are only prospering gymnospermous on the earth. A fir-tree, a larch, a pine, a cedar – typical representatives of this numerous class.
3. The majority of coniferous – trees, and among them there are many champions. Some of them have height more than hundred meters, and a pine durable – the oldest tree in the world, to it more than four thousand years.
4. A ginkgo two-bladed – the only representative of the class which was found in 1712 by Engelbert Kempfer. Long time all types of a ginkgo were considered died out, but this find turned these representations upside down. Now two-bladed is presented to a ginkgo in many botanical gardens of Europe, and the only place where he can be met in the wild nature is mountains of East China.
5. Unlike coniferous, a ginkgo – a listopadny tree, it reaches in height of forty meters, and the age of some trees exceeds one thousand years. Their smell frightens off mean insects, and some bibliophiles, saving the books from parasites, put leaves of this most ancient plant between pages.
6. One more class gymnospermous are cycases. They include about ninety types and are widespread in Asia, Australia and Africa. Cycases are similar to palm trees, and in height these gymnospermous can reach fifteen meters.
7. In some countries the leaves of cycases are eaten, and in Japan in the culinary purposes uses its core in which there is a lot of starch. In Africa the cycas is called a breadfruit tree and also considered edible.
8. Gymnospermous to flowering plants on the evolutionary development the class gnetovy is considered the most approximate. The surprising Velvichiya growing in Africa, the most famous representative of this class which includes more than seventy types.
9. Externally the velvichiya is similar to a stub and it has only two leaves which do not fall down and grow all life, and it can last not one hundred years. This representative gymnospermous grows in deserts and exists thanks to the deep root which reaches ground waters.