Economic Importance Of Pteridophytes

INTRODUCTION Pteridophytes, including ferns and fern-allies, are the earliest of all the land plants which originated during the Silurian period and went on to become the dominant vegetation of earth’s surface during the Carboniferous period. They became the first ever group of plants on earth’s surface showing the presence of well-developed vascular system, thereby, playing an important link in the evolution from cryptogams (algae and bryophytes) to phanerogams (gymnosperms and angiosperms). Though they have largely been replaced by seed plants in the course of evolution, they continue to fo…