Question

Are lycophytes extinct?

Answer 1

To get extinct means to completely vanish from the earth’s surface. Lycophytes are a wide range of living plants that have provided important data on evolutionary trends in the primitive vascular plants.

Complete answer:
Lycophyte belonging to the class of Lycopodiopsida is a group of spore-bearing vascular plants that constitute more than 1200 species that are present till date. These are distributed widely however numerous species are present in the tropics.
Lycophytes are known from the Devonian period that was around 419.2 billion years ago. Among the ancient lycophytes, like the lepidodendron, were trees that were around 30 meters in height. The living genera constitute small plants in which some are erect while others are low creepers. Leaving behind the size and geological age, all the members of lycophytes share some common group features like-
Dichotomous branching, i.e. the shoot tip is in fork shape.
Leaves are mostly small but sometimes may reach a distance of 1 meter.
Sporangia shows its presence on the adaxial side of the leaf.
They generally have cone-like structures called strobili, that are sporangia bearing leaves.
Examples of some extant genera are- Selaginella and Isoetes, both are heterotopous.
From the above discussion, it is clear that however some primitive species of lycophytes are extinct but most of them are still found.

Therefore, wecan say that lycophytes are not extinct.

Note-
The remains of lepidodendron and various other lycophytes lead to the formation of great coal beds of the world. Their life cycle constitutes both gametophyte as well as sporophyte phase alternatively.