“It is an unremarkable and rather fragile plant, but a flowering herb that frustrates gardeners for being notoriously difficult to grow has stunned scientists after they discovered it has the world’s largest genome.
“The DNA contained within Paris japonica dwarves all other plant and animal genomes that have been analysed so far.
“It is 50 times longer than the human genome, even though our species is thought to be one of the most complex and advanced on the planet.
“A genome – the biological code which directs how every organism develops – is made up of the DNA found inside almost all living cells.
“The slow-growing plant, which is native to the mountains of the Japanese island of Honshu but is also found in gardens in the UK, boasts more than 150 billion base pairs…
“Humans have just three billion base pairs.”
Read more at Telegraph
