Phylogeny of early land plants: insights from genes and genomes

A large body of evidence from molecular systematic studies has confirmed th e charophytic origin of land plants, and clarified monophyly of many lineag es in charophytes and land plants. These studies have also identified liver worts as the earliest land plants, and the lycopods as the extant sister gr oup to all other vascular plants, Two traditionally defined groups - bryoph ytes and pteridophytes - are now recognized as early grades of land plant e volution. However, several problems that complicate the use of sequence dat a in reconstructing plant phylogeny have become apparent; reconstruction of an accurate land plant phylogeny will require analysis of sequences of mul tiple genes and genomic structural characters of all three genomes.