Unlike Cycas and Pinus, Gnetum shows the occurrence of vessel elements and the absence of archegonia. Archegonia are altogether absent in the female gametophyte and vessels occur in the xylem along with the tracheids in the secondary wood. Thus Gnetum shows affinities with angiosperms. Besides it resembles angiosperms in several other aspects like presence of tetrasporic embryo sac, free nuclear divisions in the embryo sac, two cotyledonous embryo etc.