Although Bryophytes and Pterophytes are both plant divisions with a common ancestor, they have little in common. While Bryophytes mosses are generally nonvascular and very short in height, Pterophytes ferns are vascular plants that usually grow much taller than mosses. While the dominant generation in mosses is the gametophyte, ferns exhibit the sporophyte generation. The details of their alternations of generation vary as well, although both have diploid and haploid stages. Alteration of generations is defined as a life cycle in which there is both a multicellular diploid form, the sporophyte, and a multicellular haploid form, the gametophyte. Meiosis in...
in the archegonium. Both need water to reproduce, and both have sporangia that disperse spores and house meiosis. Both are seedless plants. They also evolved from the same ancestor- charophytes.

The major difference between these two cycles is the dominant generation- gametophyte in mosses and sporophyte in ferns. Ferns can also be heterosporous, while mosses are always homosporous. Ferns themselves are vascular, while mosses are not.

Bryophytes and Pterophytes follow the same general cycle through their lives- the alternation of generations. However, it is obvious that many differences exist within the details of these cycles and the plants themselves.