The extant spermatophytes form five divisions, the first four of which are traditionally grouped

as gymnosperms, plants that have unenclosed, "naked seeds":[1]: 172 

 Cycadophyta, the cycads, a subtropical and tropical group of plants,

 Ginkgophyta, which includes a single living species of tree in the genus Ginkgo,
 Pinophyta, the conifers, which are cone-bearing trees and shrubs, and
 Gnetophyta, the gnetophytes, various woody plants in the relict
genera Ephedra, Gnetum, and Welwitschia.
The fifth extant division is the flowering plants, also known as angiosperms or magnoliophytes, the
largest and most diverse group of spermatophytes:

 Angiosperms, the flowering plants, possess seeds enclosed in a fruit, unlike

gymnosperms.
In addition to the five living taxa listed above, the fossil record contains evidence of
many extinct taxa of seed plants, among those:

 Pteridospermae, the so-called "seed ferns", were one of the earliest successful groups of
land plants, and forests dominated by seed ferns were prevalent in the late Paleozoic.
 Glossopteris was the most prominent tree genus in the ancient southern supercontinent
of Gondwana during the Permian period.
By the Triassic period, seed ferns had declined in ecological importance, and representatives of
modern gymnosperm groups were abundant and dominant through the end of the Cretaceous, when
the angiosperms radiated.

Evolutionary history[edit]
Main article: Evolutionary history of plants §  Seeds

A whole genome duplication event in the ancestor of seed plants occurred about 319 million years
ago.[2] This gave rise to a series of evolutionary changes that resulted in the origin of seed plants.
A middle Devonian (385-million-year-old) precursor to seed plants from Belgium has been identified
predating the earliest seed plants by about 20 million years. Runcaria, small and radially
symmetrical, is an integumented megasporangium surrounded by a cupule.
The megasporangium bears an unopened distal extension protruding above the
mutlilobed integument. It is suspected that the extension was involved in anemophilous
(wind) pollination. Runcaria sheds new light on the sequence of character acquisition leading to the
seed. Runcaria has all of the qualities of seed plants except for a solid seed coat and a system to
guide the pollen to the seed.[3]

Relationships and nomenclature[edit]

Further information: Gnetophyta §  Classification

Seed-bearing plants are a subclade of the vascular plants (tracheophytes) and were traditionally

divided into angiosperms, or flowering plants, and gymnosperms, which includes the gnetophytes,
cycads, ginkgo, and conifers. Older morphological studies believed in a close relationship between
the gnetophytes and the angiosperms,[4] in particular based on vessel elements. However, molecular
studies (and some more recent morphological[5][6] and fossil[7] papers) have generally shown
a clade of gymnosperms, with the gnetophytes in or near the conifers. For example, one common
proposed set of relationships is known as the gne-pine hypothesis and looks like:[8][9][10]
  
angiosperms (flowering plants)
 

gymnosperms  
cycads [11]
   

 
Ginkgo
 

     
Pinaceae (the pine family)
     

 
gnetophytes
 

 
other conifers
 

However, the relationships between these groups should not be considered settled. [4][12]
Other classifications group all the seed plants in a single division, with classes for the five groups:

 Division Spermatophyta
o Cycadopsida, the cycads
o Ginkgoopsida, the ginkgo
o Pinopsida, the conifers, ("Coniferopsida")
o Gnetopsida, the gnetophytes
o Magnoliopsida, the flowering plants, or Angiospermopsida
A more modern classification ranks these groups as separate divisions (sometimes under
the Superdivision Spermatophyta):

 Cycadophyta, the cycads

 Ginkgophyta, the ginkgo
 Pinophyta, the conifers
 Gnetophyta, the gnetophytes
 Magnoliophyta, the flowering plants