Editing Embryophyte (section)

===Rise of vascular plants===
[[Image:Rhynia reconstruction.svg|thumb|upright=0.5|Reconstruction of a plant of ''Rhynia'']]
During the [[Silurian]] and [[Devonian]] periods (around {{period span/brief|Silurian|Devonian|-1}}), plants evolved which possessed true vascular tissue, including cells with walls strengthened by lignin ([[tracheid]]s). Some extinct early plants appear to be between the grade of organization of bryophytes and that of true vascular plants (eutracheophytes). Genera such as ''[[Horneophyton]]'' have water-conducting tissue more like that of mosses, but a different life-cycle in which the sporophyte is branched and more developed than the gametophyte. Genera such as ''[[Rhynia]]'' have a similar life-cycle but have simple tracheids and so are a kind of vascular plant.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kidston |first=R. |last2=Lang |first2=W. H. |date=January 1996 |title=XXIV.—On Old Red Sandstone Plants showing Structure, from the Rhynie Chert Bed, Aberdeenshire. Part I. Rhynia Gwynne-Vaughani, Kidston and Lang |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0263593300006805/type/journal_article |journal=Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: Earth Sciences |language=en |volume=87 |issue=3 |pages=427–450 |doi=10.1017/S0263593300006805 |issn=0263-5933|url-access=subscription }}</ref> It was assumed that the gametophyte dominant phase seen in bryophytes used to be the ancestral condition in terrestrial plants, and that the sporophyte dominant stage in vascular plants was a derived trait. However, the gametophyte and sporophyte stages were probably equally independent from each other, and that the mosses and vascular plants in that case are both derived, and have evolved in opposite directions.<ref>{{Cite journal|title=Sporophytes of polysporangiate land plants from the early Silurian period may have been photosynthetically autonomous|first1=Petr|last1=Štorch|first2=Viktor|last2=Žárský|first3=Jiří|last3=Bek|first4=Jiří|last4=Kvaček|first5=Milan|last5=Libertín|date=May 28, 2018|journal=Nature Plants|volume=4|issue=5|pages=269–271|doi=10.1038/s41477-018-0140-y|pmid=29725100|s2cid=19151297}}</ref>

During the Devonian period, vascular plants diversified and spread to many different land environments. In addition to vascular tissues which transport water throughout the body, tracheophytes have an outer layer or cuticle that resists [[desiccation|drying out]]. The sporophyte is the dominant generation, and in modern species develops [[leaf|leaves]], [[Plant stem|stems]] and [[root]]s, while the gametophyte remains very small.

{{Further|Polysporangiophyte|Horneophytopsida|Rhyniopsida}}
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