An angiosperm is a plant that produces flowers and seeds enclosed in a protective fruit.

Angiosperms make up most of the plants you see around you: apple trees, roses, oak trees, grasses, vegetables in gardens, and even tiny duckweed floating on ponds. When you bite into an apple or crack open a peanut shell, you're experiencing the angiosperm's clever strategy: protect the seeds inside something attractive that animals will want to eat or carry away. After an animal eats the fruit and travels somewhere else, it deposits the seeds (often in its droppings), helping the plant spread to new areas.

Scientists contrast angiosperms with gymnosperms (like pine trees and other conifers), which produce “naked seeds” in cones rather than flowers and fruits. Angiosperms appeared relatively recently in Earth's history, about 140 million years ago, but they quickly became dominant. Today, roughly 90% of all plant species are angiosperms. Their success comes from that flower-and-fruit system, which has proved remarkably effective at reproduction and spreading across diverse environments, from arctic tundra to tropical rainforests.