the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
noun-plural. A class of flowerless plants, embracing ferns, horsetails, club mosses, quillworts, and other like plants. See the Note under cryptogamia.
The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
A division of the vegetable kingdom including the ferns and their allies; the vascular cryptogams. See Cryptogamia, and compare Bryophyta.
WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
n. containing all the vascular plants that do not bear seeds: ferns, horsetails, club mosses, and whisk ferns; in some classifications considered a subdivision of Tracheophyta