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BIOLOGISTS in Canada have found a living relative of the common ancestor of
all plants. Plants split into two groups—streptophytes (mostly land
plants) and chlorophytes (green algae)—around 800 millions years ago. But
when Claude Lemieux and his colleagues at the University of Laval in Quebec
sequenced the genome of the microorganism Merostigma viride, they found
similarities with both groups, suggesting it dates from before the split (
Nature, vol 403, p 649).