Another type of seedless vascular plant is ferns, also known as monilophytes.

另一种无籽维管植物是蕨类植物，也被称为单生植物。

We're talking bryophytes and seedless vascular plants, the categories that include mosses and ferns, liverworts, and more.

我们说的是苔藓植物和无籽维管植物，这类植物包括苔藓、蕨类、苔类等。

As you can tell, bryophytes and seedless vascular plants are not simply low-to-the-ground lurkers.

正如你所知，苔藓植物和无籽维管植物并不是简单的地下潜伏者。

Although many of the early seedless vascular plants have gone extinct, you can still find some of them growing today.

虽然许多早期的无籽维管植物已经灭绝了，但你仍然可以发现它们中的一些在今天生长。

Well, the bryophytes and seedless vascular plants were some of the first plants to arise from that event — and many of them still exist today!

苔藓植物和无籽维管植物是第一批从那次事件中产生的植物，其中许多今天仍然存在！

Next time, we'll be using these tools to uncover the history of plants, starting with bryophytes and seedless vascular plants, some of the earliest plants on Earth.

下节课，我们将用这些工具来揭开植物的历史，从苔藓植物和无籽维管植物开始，它们是地球上最早的植物。

So, a few hundred million years later, a cousin of the bryophytes showed up, Seedless Vascular Plants forming another branch on the plant family tree: seedless vascular plants.

因此，几亿年后，苔藓植物的表亲无籽维管植物出现了，形成了植物家族树的另一个分支：无籽维管植物。

On top of that, seedless vascular plants — and all plants that evolved after them — have a dominant sporophyte, meaning that what we tend to recognize as the plant is actually its sporophyte generation.

最重要的是，无籽维管植物——以及在它们之后进化的所有植物——都有一个显性的孢子体，这意味着我们倾向于认为的植物实际上是它的孢子体一代。

Having a dominant sporophyte introduced lots of advantages — like, while the spore-making generation of a bryophyte couldn't grow very far off the ground; the sporophytes of seedless vascular plants could grow much taller and larger, with more room for spore-producing organs.

拥有一个优势孢子体带来了很多好处——比如，苔藓植物的产孢体不能长得离地面很远；而无籽维管植物的孢子体可以长得更高更大，有更多的空间容纳产孢器官。