Fe is essential for plant growth but toxic in excess. To acquire appropriate Fe, vascular plants have developed two unique strategies in sporophyte generation, the reduction-based Strategy I of non-graminaceous plants for Fe2+ and the chelation-based Strategy II of graminaceous plants for Fe3+. Recent studies have also shown that algae can take up both Fe2+ and Fe3+. However, the mechanism of Fe uptake in bryophytes the earliest diverging branch of land plants and dominant in gametophyte generation, is less clear. In this study, we found that a nonvascular liverwort, Marchantia polymorpha, used Strategy I for Fe acquisition. This system may have been acquired in the common ancestor of land plants and co-opted from the gametophyte to sporophyte generation in the evolution of land plants. This finding fills the gap in knowledge about the differences in Fe acquisition mechanisms in the alga and land plants.