<Li> Algae - especially the green algae . Recent studies have demonstrated that the algae consist of several unrelated groups . It turns out that the common features of living in water and photosynthesis were misleading as indicators of close relationship . Only those groups of algae included in the Viridiplantae are still considered relatives of land plants . </Li> <P> These groups are sometimes referred to as "lower plants", referring to their status as the earliest plant groups to evolve, but the usage is imprecise, since both groups are polyphyletic and may be used to include vascular cryptogams, such as the ferns and fern allies that reproduce using spores . Non-vascular plants are often among the first species to move into new and inhospitable territories, along with prokaryotes and protists, and thus function as pioneer species . </P>

Plants that produce spores and have no vascular system