Malaria and related parasites retain a vestigial, but biosynthetically active, plastid organelle acquired far back in evolution from a red algal cell. The organelle appears to be essential for ...

At the base of mossy trees, deep in the mountains of Taiwan and mainland Japan or nestled in the subtropical forests of Okinawa, grows what most might mistake for a mushroom—but it is actually a very ...

Five different regions of the first foliage leaf of etiolated barley seedlings were studied with respect to leaf growth, plastid growth and replication, differentiation of etioplasts, and conversion ...

Chloroplasts are the ancestral members of a structurally diverse family of organelles known as plastids (which also includes proplastids, amyloplasts and chromoplasts). Plastids are responsible for ...

The study reveals how Balanophora plants function despite abandoning photosynthesis and, in some species, sexual reproduction. Their plastid genomes shrank dramatically in a shared ancestor, yet the ...