The following is an excerpt of a longer story.
One of the most astonishing secrets in biology is this: every plant you see makes two different plants from the same genome. And, scientists recently reported, a single gene from an ancient, powerful lineage can make the difference.
How can such a truth be so little known? In most land plants, including conifers and flowering plants, one of the plants is tiny, and frequently hidden inside its doppelganger. But that doesn’t mean you haven’t seen them. In fact, they may have made you suffer.
View the full story here: Mosses Make Two Different Plants From the Same Genome, and a Single Gene Can Make the Difference