A vascular plant is a plant that possesses water-conducting (xylem) and food-conducting (phloem) strands in its stem and roots. Vascular plants, of which about 300,000 species are known, include the angiosperms (flowering plants), gymnosperms (such as the conifers), clubmosses, horsetails, and ferns. Altogether they account for 9 of the 12 plant phyla. Members of the other three phyla of plants, known collectively as bryophytes, either lack such conducting tissues or have poorly developed ones.