Figure 1.

Structural diversity in plastids. (a) Nicotiana has a typical land plant plastid of 156 Kb and tripartite structure, (b) the mycoheterotrophic nonphotosynthetic orchid Epipogium roseum has the smallest plastid genome to date at 19 Kb, and with greatly reduced gene content, (c) green algae, here represented by Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, demonstrate dramatic plastid genome variation and include species with giant plastomes over 500 Kb in length. [Colour figure can be viewed at http://wileyonlinelibrary.com]