Ancestral chloroplast genome in Mesostigma viride reveals an early branch of green plant evolution

Sequence comparisons suggest that all living green plants belong to one of two major phyla: Streptophyta (land plants and their closest green algal relatives, the charophytes); and Chlorophyta (the rest of green algae). Because no green algae are known that pre-date the Streptophyta/Chlorophyta split, and also because the earliest diverging green algae show considerable morphological variation, the nature of the unicellular flagellate ancestor...