See the May 1 "Botany Photo of the Day" at http://www.botanicalgarden.ubc.ca/potd/2007/05/dawsonia_longifolia.php The plant *looks* like a relative of pines -- is there in fact any shared ancestry, in the distant past ? ...say, with Japanese umbrella pines ? Could it be a "lost link" in plant evolution ? Thanks.
hello Jaro Unlikely ther is a direct lineage between the two. dawsonia is a moss that can be up to 1m tall and tecnically a non vascular plant. the lineage or link between an umbrella pine and this moss would be really really stretched. the moss has no true vascular tissues like higher plants and often thought of as being in their own evolutionary branch of the plant kingdom