On 8 Oct 1999, Jon Greenberg wrote:
> No. This definition excludes photoautotrophic protists (or Protoctists, if you
> prefer), which have chloroplasts, but not embryos.
Jon,
How do you define an embryo? O.K. I'm into definitions again. Still,
bryophyte embryos are not nearly as developed as their distant seed
bearing relatives. There are numerous algae (in several Phyla) that have
just as recognizable, polar, early development stages. Of course, with
the media the algae general live in the "embryos" are developing freely
from the parent from which they were shed. Should this be the
distiquishing characteristic? ...that an early developing embryo must be
developing within the parent? Is this justification enough to separate
some algae (greens) at the Kingdom level from terrestrial plants? We
often refer to plants in Kingdom Plantae as the embryophytes but is this
really accurate?
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