Assertions re plant "cellularity"

[brownt1 at lincoln.ac.nz]

In article <1992Jul7.165609.2115 at gserv1.dl.ac.uk>, ajt at uk.ac.sari.rri (Tony Travis) writes:
> In article <Mon.6Jul92.2232.bionet-news at uk.ac.daresbury> you write:
> : 
> : [...]
> : What are the fundamental characters common to all things we
> : categorize as plants, whether unicellular or multicellular?
> 
> A plant is an organism that has the ability to use sunlight to feed on
> C02 from the air using water and minerals from the soil.

Someone else has already pointed out this excludes rare 
saprophytic/parasitic forms, but it also _includes_ a large group of 
prokaryotes.  I've never objected to the term 'blue green _algae_', as 
these organisms do very similar things to eukaryotic algae, but now you've 
got the plant kingdom stradling the divide between eu- and prokaryotes.

I think I'll stick with a definition I heard a while ago -

"If it's green, it's a plant" :-)

Cheers -tb