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Members of the animal kingdom are only a small fraction of all the living things on the planet. Other living things belong to other kingdoms—Plants, Fungi, Protists, Eubacteria, and Archaebacteria.   Qualities of Plants   Plants differ from animals in a special way—they use sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide to make their own sugar for food. They may have other distinctive features, such as stems, roots and leaves. Many plants are vascular. This means the plant has special tubes for carrying food and water to all its parts. Organisms in the plant kingdom are multicellular, just like animals.  Four common plant phyla are shown on these pages.

Characteristics of Mosses
	vascular	no
	seeds	no
	flowers	no

	Mosses
	You have probably seen moss growing on trees or in shallow streams. A single moss plant is very small and has very tiny leaflike structures. Mosses have no flowers or seeds.

	Ferns
	Most ferns have feather-like leaves. Look at the picture of the young, folded fern leaves at the right. At this stage, these leaves are called fiddleheads.
	One way ferns are different from mosses

	Characteristics of Ferns
		vascular	yes
		seeds	no
		flowers	no

is that ferns are vascular. Vascular plants can grow larger than nonvascular plants. This is because the vascular tubes can carry materials to parts of the plant high off the ground. Ferns and mosses are alike in that they both use spores to reproduce.