Acotyledons

Acotyledons, a name somewhat inaptly applied to the cryptogamic portion of the vegetable kingdom by analogy with the divisions Dicotyledons and Monocotyledons, comprising all flowerless plants. It signifies that their spores or reproductive elements do not contain any cotyledon or embryonic leaf. Though this is strictly true, as they do not at first contain even an embryo, in the higher Cryptogams such as the Ferns an embryo is subsequently produced, one portion of which gives rise to a cotyledon, much as in Monocotyledons.