Enforcement Officer / Accounts Officer (EO/AO) 2020 recruitment test, advertisement 421. Transcribed from the Commission's own booklet (series A, NMJX-U-GTA); answer as per the official UPSC final answer key. This question is in Part B. Answer last reviewed 24 August 2026.

Which one of the following cannot be called “Amphibian of the Plant Kingdom” ?

(a)Spirogyra
(b)Riccia
(c)Funaria
(d)Marchantia

Answer

Why

Correct — A, (a) Spirogyra. 'Amphibian of the Plant Kingdom' is the standard textbook nickname for the BRYOPHYTES — the mosses and liverworts. They earn it because they live on land but cannot finish reproducing without a film of water: the male gametes (antherozoids) are flagellate and must SWIM from the antheridium to the egg in the archegonium, exactly as an amphibian must return to water to breed. Riccia, Marchantia and Funaria are all bryophytes, so all three can be called that. Spirogyra cannot, and the stem's emphasised 'cannot' is asking for precisely that one. Spirogyra is not a bryophyte at all — it is a filamentous green ALGA of the Chlorophyceae, living fully submerged in fresh water. It has no land phase to be amphibious about, and an organism that never leaves the water is the one thing on the list the nickname cannot describe.

Why the others are wrong

(b)Riccia — Riccia IS a bryophyte and so is covered by the nickname, which is why it cannot be the answer to a 'cannot be called' question. It is a thalloid LIVERWORT (class Hepaticopsida), growing as a flat, forked, ribbon-like green thallus pressed against damp soil or floating on still water, often in rosette-shaped patches after the rains. Its sex organs are sunk into the upper surface of the thallus, and like every bryophyte it needs surface water for the antherozoids to reach the egg. Riccia and Marchantia are the two liverworts a school syllabus always names together.
(c)Funaria — Funaria is a bryophyte, so the nickname fits it and it cannot be the answer. It is a MOSS (class Bryopsida) — the cord moss, the standard laboratory moss of Indian botany courses — with an erect leafy gametophore bearing spirally arranged leaves, anchored by rhizoids, and a long-stalked capsule (the sporophyte) sitting on top. Mosses are the largest bryophyte group and the most obviously land-dwelling of them, which is exactly why they are the classic illustration of a plant that has left the water everywhere except in its reproduction.
(d)Marchantia — Marchantia is a bryophyte and is covered by the phrase, so it is not the exception being asked for. It is the best-known thalloid LIVERWORT, recognised by the gemma cups on its upper surface — small cup-shaped structures holding gemmae, which are splashed out by rain and grow into new plants, a neat piece of asexual reproduction — and by its umbrella-shaped stalked antheridiophores and archegoniophores. Its dependence on water for fertilisation is the same as Riccia's and Funaria's.

Concept

Bryophytes are called the amphibians of the plant kingdom because they occupy the same halfway position between water and land that frogs and toads do among vertebrates. The adult plant lives on land — on damp soil, rocks, walls and tree bark — but it has no vascular tissue (no xylem or phloem), no true roots, stems or leaves (only root-like rhizoids and leaf-like structures), and no waterproofing worth the name, so it must stay in moist shade. Above all, its sexual reproduction is aquatic: the antherozoid is flagellate and swims through a film of water to the archegonium. Bryophytes are grouped into liverworts (Hepaticopsida — Riccia, Marchantia), hornworts (Anthocerotopsida — Anthoceros) and mosses (Bryopsida — Funaria, Polytrichum, Sphagnum). Their life cycle is the one place in the plant kingdom where the GAMETOPHYTE, the haploid sexual generation, is the dominant, independent, green plant, and the diploid sporophyte is smaller and attached to it, drawing nourishment from it. Spirogyra sits outside all of this. It is a green alga: unbranched filaments of cylindrical cells, each with the spiral ribbon-shaped chloroplasts that give the genus its name and its common name 'pond silk', floating as slimy green mats in freshwater ponds and ditches, and reproducing sexually by conjugation between filaments rather than by swimming antherozoids reaching an archegonium.

This is a nickname-recognition item, and the general ability paper leans on nicknames because they compress a whole taxonomic group into one memorable phrase. The work is two-step: decode the phrase into the group it names, then test each option for membership. A candidate who only half-remembers that the phrase is about 'plants that need water' can be pulled towards Spirogyra for the wrong reason, since an alga needs more water than any moss — the alga is indeed the answer, but because it is not a bryophyte, not because of how much water it likes. The habit rewarded is decoding the label first and only then reading the options.

Key facts

'Amphibians of the plant kingdom' means the BRYOPHYTES — liverworts, hornworts and mosses.
The reason is reproductive: bryophyte antherozoids are flagellate and must swim through a film of water to reach the egg in the archegonium.
Riccia and Marchantia are thalloid liverworts; Funaria is a moss. All three are bryophytes.
Spirogyra is a filamentous green alga (Chlorophyceae) with spiral chloroplasts, living submerged in fresh water — not a bryophyte.
Bryophytes lack vascular tissue and true roots, stems and leaves; they anchor by rhizoids.
In bryophytes the haploid gametophyte is the dominant, independent generation and the diploid sporophyte is dependent on it — the reverse of ferns and seed plants.
Marchantia reproduces asexually through gemmae carried in gemma cups on the thallus surface.
Spirogyra's sexual reproduction is by conjugation between adjacent filaments, with no flagellate gamete involved.

The nickname belongs to the bryophytes — and one option is not one

Spirogyra→A filamentous green ALGA of the Chlorophyceae — unbranched filaments of cylindrical cells carrying the spiral ribbon-shaped chloroplasts that give the genus its name, floating as slimy green mats in freshwater ponds and ditches. It lives fully submerged, so it has no land phase to be amphibious about, and it reproduces sexually by conjugation between filaments rather than by a swimming antherozoid reaching an archegonium.

Riccia→A thalloid LIVERWORT — a flat, forked, ribbon-like green thallus pressed against damp soil or floating on still water, often in rosette-shaped patches after the rains, with its sex organs sunk into the upper surface of the thallus.

Marchantia→The best-known thalloid liverwort, recognised by the gemma cups on its upper surface — small cup-shaped structures holding gemmae, which rain splashes out to grow into new plants — and by its umbrella-shaped stalked antheridiophores and archegoniophores.

Funaria→A MOSS — the cord moss, the standard laboratory moss of Indian botany courses — with an erect leafy gametophore bearing spirally arranged leaves, anchored by rhizoids, and a long-stalked capsule, the sporophyte, sitting on top.

Why bryophytes earn the name→They live on land but cannot finish reproducing without a film of water: the flagellate antherozoid must SWIM from the antheridium to the egg in the archegonium, exactly as an amphibian must return to water to breed. They also lack vascular tissue and true roots, stems and leaves, anchoring by rhizoids, so they must stay in moist shade.

The generation that dominates→In bryophytes the haploid GAMETOPHYTE is the dominant, independent, green plant, and the diploid sporophyte is smaller and attached to it, drawing nourishment from it — the reverse of ferns and seed plants. The three classes are liverworts (Hepaticopsida), hornworts (Anthocerotopsida) and mosses (Bryopsida).

Study next

Plant kingdom classification: algae, bryophytes, pteridophytes, gymnosperms, angiosperms, and what separates each stepAlternation of generations, and which generation dominates in bryophytes, pteridophytes and seed plantsPteridophytes as the first vascular plants — Selaginella, Equisetum, PterisEconomic importance of bryophytes: Sphagnum (peat moss) in horticulture, mosses as soil binders and as pollution indicatorsGreen, brown and red algae — Chlorophyceae, Phaeophyceae, Rhodophyceae — and their pigments and stored food

Common traps

Reading the emphasised 'cannot' as 'can'. Three options fit the nickname and only one does not.
Taking the phrase to mean 'lives in water' and therefore looking for the option that needs water most. It means the opposite: lives on land but breeds in water.
Assuming Riccia and Marchantia are algae because they are thalloid and grow in wet places. Thallus form alone does not classify them.
Confusing Funaria (a moss) with a fern. Ferns are pteridophytes, vascular and with a dominant sporophyte.
Forgetting that in bryophytes the green plant you see is the gametophyte, not the sporophyte.

Botany on this paper stays with named nicknames, group membership and one-line distinguishing features rather than with life-cycle detail. Expect the same phrase from the other direction — 'Bryophytes are called the amphibians of the plant kingdom because' with four reasons offered — and companion nicknames from the same syllabus. Genus names are almost always the school set: Riccia, Marchantia, Funaria, Anthoceros, Sphagnum, Spirogyra, Chlamydomonas.

Related PYQs

EPFO_EOAO_2020_Q41Open & attempt →

Which one of the following is not a female reproductive organ in humans ?

(a) Ovaries
(b) Oviducts
(c) Cervix
(d) Stamen

Answer(d) Stamen

The item immediately before this one in the same biology block, and the same odd-one-out shape: a list in which three entries share a property named in the stem and the fourth comes from a different group altogether.

Practice

practice — not a real PYQ
Bryophytes are called the amphibians of the plant kingdom mainly because
- (a)they can grow both on land and fully submerged in water
- (b)they need water for their flagellate male gametes to reach the egg
- (c)their bodies contain a very high proportion of water
- (d)they alternate between an aquatic and a terrestrial generation
Answer(b) they need water for their flagellate male gametes to reach the egg
practice — not a real PYQ
Gemma cups, used for asexual reproduction, are a characteristic feature of
- (a)Funaria
- (b)Spirogyra
- (c)Marchantia
- (d)Anthoceros
Answer(c) Marchantia

Why