Etymology

• The name gymnosperm has origins in Greek. It literally means "naked seed." By contrast, the flowering plant or angiosperm translates from Green to mean "vessel seed," referring to the protective tissues enclosing the seed that were formed inside the flower ovary.
  
  

Features

• Plants known as gymnosperms do not produce flowers when developing their seeds. Instead, the structures known as strobili or cones appear. These structures are either male or female, as determined by their production of male pollen or housing female ovules. The strobili or cones may occur on separate plants, or occur on the same plant -- it all depends on plant species. Seeds are never enclosed in protective tissue as they develop. Compared with flowering plants, the gymnosperms are regarded by botanists as being much more evolutionarily primitive. Gymnosperm plants dominated millennia ago, when dinosaurs walked the planet.
  
  

Types

• Today, only three general types of gymnosperms remain on Earth: conifers, cycads and ginkgoes. Conifers are woody plants that bear cones, and usually bear needlelike foliage. It is the largest group of gymnosperms. Most conifers are evergreen, but a few are deciduous. Cycads are evergreen shrubs with a thick, trunk-like stem, and today only exist in warm climates. Cycads also produce cones. Ginkgo trees were once more numerous, but only one species exists today. Paleobotanists believe ginkgo is the evolutionary intermediate between gymnosperms and angiosperms. Ginkgoes do not produce cones, but with strobili that become fleshy, fruitlike orbs with seeds inside.
  
  

Examples

• Examples of conifer trees include pines (Pinus), spruce (Picea), fir (Abies), cypress (Taxodium and Cupressus), southern pines (Aracauria), kauri (Agathis), larch (Larix), cedar (Juniperus and Cedrus), yew (Taxus) and arborvitae (Thuja). Cycads include those in the genera Encephalartos, Cycas, Dioon, Ceratozamia and Zamia. Common names of some garden-grown cycads include king sago, virgin palm, coontie and cardboard palm. The lone species of ginkgo, also called maidenhair tree, is known botanically as Ginkgo biloba.