Your Christmas Tree has got a lot more going on than just its decorations

Pine trees come in many different species. Depending on its location, how many leaves it makes and the pattern of the bark, a pine tree can be relatively easy to identify.
The closer one looks at groups of similar pine trees, it becomes harder to answer questions about how closely or distantly related they are.
Botanists have many techniques for
working out these problems, but more help is always welcome.
Researchers at Oregon State University published findings in BMC Biology that describe looking at DNA found in the chloroplast of pine trees to help differentiate populations of very similar trees.
Chloroplasts are the parts of plant cells that make the leaves green. They have their own DNA, and each tree only gets its chloroplast
from the plant that makes the seed (its mother.)
Since this DNA gives a somewhat stable reference point for analysis, because it doesn’t mix like most of the DNA found in a cell.
In their paper, Matthew Parks, Richard Cronn and Aaron Liston describe how best botanists can use this chloroplast DNA to tease out otherwise unrecognizable differences or similarities in plants.

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