The Gymnospermous plants of the present day are included in two natural orders, Coniferæ and Cycadaceæ.
The Chalk flora is characterised by the Gymnospermous almost equalling the Angiospermous Dicotyledons, and by the existence of a considerable number of Cycadaceæ, which do not appear in the Tertiary period.
The Gymnospermous dicotyledons are represented by Coniferae (Cupressinae, Abietineae, Taxineae, and Gnetaceae.
The cycads have usually simple or unbranching stems, pinnate leaves borne in a crown at top, and fruits which, though somewhat various in structure and arrangement, are all of the simpler form of gymnospermous type.
I have found at least eight species of these fruits in the Erian and Carboniferous of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, all of which are evidently fruits of gymnospermous trees.
The strobiles or spikes associated with these trees have been variously described asgymnospermous (Renault) or cryptogamous (Groldenberg and Williamson).
A thorough examination of cycadean seeds has recently been made by Miss Stopes, more particularly with a view to a comparison of their vascular supply with that in Palaeozoic gymnospermous seeds (Flora, 1904).
It is of interest to note that the leaves of Gnetum, while typically Dicotyledonous in appearance, possess a Gymnospermous character in the continuous and plate-like medullary rays of their vascular bundles.
It remained uncertain, however, from which line of Cryptogams the gymnospermous Seed-plants had sprung.
The Bennettiteae, at any rate, were still at the gymnospermous level as regards their pollination, for the exposed micropyles of the ovules were in a position to receive the pollen directly, without the intervention of a stigma.
The general relation of the gymnospermous Seed-plants to the Higher Cryptogamia was cleared up, independently of fossil evidence, by the brilliant researches of Hofmeister, dating from the middle of the past century.
Ovules are naked in gymnospermous plants (as just described), in all others they are enclosed in the ovary.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "gymnospermous" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
