Re: Plant Evolution

[Stanley Friesen <sarima@ix.netcom.com>]

At 06:48 AM 8/6/99 -0400, Martin Human wrote:
>ST. LOUIS (AP) - The plant and animal kingdoms actually represent
>five distinct groups, according to scientists who announced
>discoveries that fundamentally alter long-standing theories about the
>evolution of plants. Researchers presented data showing that green
>plants, red plants and brown plants (mostly algae and seaweeds),
>evolved from three different one-celled plants, and so deserve to be
>considered individual kingdoms.  ...

Umm, I don't see what is new here.  The separate origin of the different
primary
algal groups has been obvious for many years.  Most botanists have long
excluded the red and brown algae from the plant kingdom.  Raising such
small groups to full kingdoms is silly, however, even to a linnaean
taxonomist like me.  The red and brown groups should just be treated as
branches of algae, and classified with their closest unicellular relatives,
even if one uses linnaean ranking.

[Also note, several of the groups traditionally considered fungi also turn
out to be closely related to various algal groups, and are best treated as
colorless algae].

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May the peace of God be with you.         sarima@ix.netcom.com