key concept 27.3 Vascular Tissues Led to Rapid Diversification of Land Plants

The first plants possessing vascular tissues did not arise until tens of millions of years after the earliest nonvascular plants had colonized the land. But once vascular tissues arose, their ability to transport water and food throughout the plant body allowed the vascular plants to spread to new terrestrial environments and to diversify rapidly.

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  • Vascular tissues have several functions that allowed plants to colonize land.

  • The precursors of vascular plants are extinct.

  • Vascular plants evolved specialized structures and processes for transporting water, minerals, and the products of photosynthesis.

  • Horsetails and ferns are more closely related than previously thought.

  • Homospores produce a single type of spore, while heterospores produce two types: megaspores and microspores.