Viridiplantae facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Viridiplantae |
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Viridiplantae
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Viridiplantae (say "Vih-rih-dih-PLAN-tay") means 'green plants'. This group includes all the green algae and all land plants. Think of it as a big family that contains everything from tiny pond scum to giant trees!
Sometimes, this group is simply called Plantae. This name is used when the traditional plant kingdom (which usually means land plants) is made bigger to include green algae too.
Scientists like Adl and his team, who classified living things in 2005, called this group Chloroplastida. This name highlights that these organisms have special parts called chloroplasts. Chloroplasts are what make plants green because they contain green chlorophyll, which helps them make their own food using sunlight. They thought the name Viridiplantae wasn't perfect because many of these species aren't what people usually think of as "plants."
There are more than 350,000 different kinds of Viridiplantae! That's a huge number of green living things.
Understanding Green Plant Groups
Scientists like to put living things into groups to understand how they are related. The Viridiplantae group is a "clade", which means it includes an ancestor and all of its descendants. It's like a family tree where everyone comes from the same original parent.
Main Branches of Viridiplantae
The Viridiplantae family tree has two main branches:
- Chlorophyta
- Streptophyta
The Chlorophyta group mainly includes many types of green algae. The Streptophyta group includes some other green algae, but it also contains all the land plants.
The Streptophyta Family
The Streptophyta branch is very important because it's where land plants come from. It includes:
- Some types of green algae called Charophyta
- All the Embryophyta, which are the land plants
When we say "green algae," it's a general term for many different types of algae. It's not a single, unified group in the same way that "mammals" is. Some green algae are more closely related to land plants than others. The Charophyta group of green algae is thought to be the closest relative to land plants.
