Absorptive heterotrophic nutrition is exhibited by

The correct option is fungi.

To understand why this is the correct answer, let's break down the concepts of nutrition in living organisms step-by-step:

1. Understanding Heterotrophic Nutrition:
Heterotrophic nutrition is a mode of nutrition in which organisms cannot synthesize their own food. Instead, they rely on other organic substances (produced by other organisms) for their energy and carbon requirements. This is in contrast to autotrophs, which make their own food via photosynthesis or chemosynthesis.

2. What is Absorptive Heterotrophic Nutrition?
Within heterotrophy, there are different strategies for obtaining nutrients:
- Holozoic nutrition: Organisms ingest solid organic matter, digest it internally, and absorb the nutrients (e.g., humans, amoeba).
- Absorptive nutrition (Saprophytic/Osmotrophic): Organisms do not ingest food directly. Instead, they secrete digestive enzymes directly onto their substrate (organic matter) in the external environment. These enzymes break down complex organic compounds into simpler, soluble molecules. The organism then directly absorbs these dissolved nutrients across their cell membranes/walls.

3. Evaluating the Options:
- Algae: Most algae are photoautotrophs. They possess chlorophyll and generate their own food through photosynthesis.
- Pteridophytes & Bryophytes: These are groups of green plants (vascular and non-vascular land plants, respectively). Like algae, they contain chlorophyll and perform photosynthesis, making them autotrophs.
- Fungi: Fungi lack chlorophyll and cannot perform photosynthesis. They are strictly heterotrophic. They obtain nutrients by growing their hyphae into or over organic substrates, secreting hydrolytic enzymes to digest food externally, and absorbing the resulting simple solutes. This mechanism is the classic definition of absorptive heterotrophic nutrition.