Martin said:

After two weeks of trying I caught the culprit - my rather chunky and content looking cat sitting on a boulder happily licking away at the
buttermilk.

solution: There's more than one way to skin a bad cat!

Let's review our plant anatomy:

Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) have no vascular system, no leaves,
and no roots. The leafy green part is haploid (one copy of each
chromosome), but the hairlike stalks with knobs on top are diploid (2
copies of each chromosomes. We humans, in case you don't know, are
diploid). They reproduce by spores.

Clubmosses have a vascular system (hence a true stem), and true roots,
but no true leaves. The plant we notice is the diploid; there's a tiny
free-living haploid stage. They reproduce by spores.

Ferns have true stems, true roots and true leaves (a true leaf has
"veins"). The part we notice is the diploid stage; there's a small
haploid stage that looks like some sort of filmy alga. [our greenhouse
at work is infested with ferns, so I see the haploid stage if I look]
Reproduction: spores.

[You're bored. I know. But now it becomes bonsai-related]

Gymnosperms are pines, ginkgos, larch, spruce, etc. They are defined
by having seeds, not spores. What's a seed? A seed is the haploid
stage now completely tiny and packaged so it never has to live on its
own.

Angiosperms, finally, are flowering plants, and that includes all trees
that aren't gymnosperms.

So show a little respect for mosses, ferns and clubmosses! They are
very cool. And very different.

Nina.