Chlorophyta
| Chlorophyta Temporal range:
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|---|---|
| "Siphoneae" from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, 1904 | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Division: | Chlorophyta Reichenbach, 1828, emend. Pascher, 1914, emend. Lewis & McCourt, 2004 |
| Classes | |
| Diversity | |
| 7,934 species (6,851 living, 1,083 fossil) | |
| Synonyms | |
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Chlorophyta or chlorophytes is a major division of green algae, and is sister taxon to the other major division Charophyta (a paraphyletic group of predominantly freshwater green algae, which form the monophyletic clade Streptophyta after including all land plants) as well as the proposed basal clade Prasinodermophyta, together with whom they form the major primary algae clade Viridiplantae (Plantae sensu stricto).