Pteridophytan.
/ˌtɛrᵻdəˈfʌɪtə/, U.S. /ˌtɛrədəˈfaɪdə/ Botany.
With singular and plural agreement. A division or phylum of plants which originally comprised all the vascular cryptogams (ferns and allied plants such as horsetails, clubmosses, etc.), but which is restricted in recent use to include only the ferns.
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1880 C. E. Bessey Bot. 335 Sachs..considered the Protophyta, Zygosporeæ, Oosporeæ, and Carposporeæ to be Classes, whereas in this book they are raised to Divisions, co-ordinate with Bryophyta, Pteridophyta, and Phanerogamia.
1897 Times 21 Aug. 6/5 The bryophyta and pteridophyta are..the domain of the morphologist concerned with academical questions such as..the evolution of higher plants.
1914 F. E. Fritsch & E. J. Salisbury Introd. Study Plants xxviii. 354 The Ferns belong to a second great subdivision of the Vegetable Kingdom, known as the Pteridophyta which also include the Horsetails..and Club-mosses.
1956 Nature 4 Feb. 214/2 The Pteridophyta..include only such plants as show a geophytic habit or are aquatic annuals.
1992 Univ. Oxf. Bot. Garden News Autumn 5 The Pteridophyta is a collection of four distantly related groups of vascular plants that have achieved ecological success without the benefit of seeds.
This is a new entry (OED Third Edition, September 2007; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1880