The gametophyte for ferns are spores. These spores are located on the surface of the fern's leaves (also known as a frond). Fern spores contain both the male gametophyte (known as antheridia) and the female gametophyte (known as archegonia). When there is a sufficient amount of moisture on the frond, sperm will swim from the antheridia and fertilize the archegonia. The fertilized egg from the archegonia will then drop and begin growing into a new fern.
Unlike ferns, angiosperms do not have their gametophytes in spores. The female gametophyte for an angiosperm is the ovaries, and they are located in the pistil. The male gametophyte is found in pollen. Pollen is carried to the ovaries through a process called pollination, in which animals and non-biotic factors (such as the rain and wind) carry the pollen from one angiosperm to another. Once the sperm and egg of a flower fuse, they form a seed.
Reproduction is the primary attribute that differs ferns from angiosperms; in most other cases, these two types of plants are very similar. They are both multi-cellular photosynthetic organisms (like all species in the plant kingdom) and, importantly, unlike some species of plants (such as mosses) they have a vascular system. The vascular system is a series of connective tissues that allows ferns and angiosperms to transport water from the roots and nutrients developed in the chlorophyll of the leaves throughout the whole plant.
Ferns are believed to have developed before angiosperms. Indeed, there is an extinct version of ferns that had seeds, which was likely an evolutionary gap between modern day ferns and angiosperms. All vascular plants are believed to have evolved from nonvascular plants that lived directly over their water source, which in turn were the bridge between plants as we know them and photosynthetic protists such as algae.