plants having a female sex organ in the form of an archegonium. Archegoniatae were first categorized as a separate subdivision in 1876 by the Russian botanist I. N. Gorozhankin, who included it in the gymno-sperms, bryophytes, and Pteropsida, in distinction to the an-giosperms (Gynoeciatae), which have no archegonium but a complex female organ, the pistil. Most botanists divide these groups into three independent subdivisions: the bryophytes, the Pteropsida, and the gymnosperms.