The progymnosperms are an extinct group of woody, spore-bearing plants that is presumed to have evolved from the trimerophytes, and eventually gave rise to the spermatophytes, ancestral to both gymnosperms and angiosperms (flowering plants).

[1] They have been treated formally at the rank of division Progymnospermophyta or class Progymnospermopsida (as opposite).

The stratigraphically oldest known examples belong to the Middle Devonian order the Aneurophytales, with forms such as Protopteridium, in which the vegetative organs consisted of relatively loose clusters of axes.

In Late Devonian times, another group of progymnosperms gave rise to the first really large trees known as Archaeopteris.

The latest surviving group of progymnosperms is the Noeggerathiales, which persisted until the end of the Permian.