The Vascular Plants

Abstract

The biologist who would understand how nature works must understand how the structures and functions of living organisms are related. First, however, he must choose a group of organisms to study. Our assignment here is to describe at an introductory level some of the structures and functions of one group of living things, the vascular plants. In this chapter, we will define the vascular plants and survey some of their members and the apparent relationships within the group. The survey is rather brief, because much of the rest of the book is concerned with a more detailed description of vascular plants, especially the more advanced groups.