Biology / Unit 10 Bio 2161 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Land Plant Origin Among the Charophyte Green Algae
Captions available
The idea
Land plants descended from a freshwater charophyte green alga, a lineage grouped with land plants in Archaeplastida by shared chloroplast ancestry.
In practice
Traits linking charophytes to land plants include phragmoplast-guided cell division, plasmodesmata, and sporopollenin, corroborated by DNA sequence comparison.
Where people slip
A living charophyte is not land plants' ancestor, only a relative of the lineage that gave rise to them.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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