Embryophyta Charophyta (UK: /kəˈrɒfɪtə, ˌkærəˈfaɪtə/) is a group of freshwater green algae, called charophytes (/ˈkærəˌfaɪts/), sometimes treated as a division,[2] yet also as a superdivision[3] or an unranked clade.

In some charophyte groups, such as the Zygnematophyceae or conjugating green algae, flagella are absent and sexual reproduction does not involve free-swimming flagellate sperm.

[15] Somewhat different charophytes have also been collected from the Late Devonian (Famennian) Waterloo Farm lagerstätte of South Africa.

The name comes from the genus Chara, but the finding that the Embryophyta actually emerged in them has not resulted in a much more restricted meaning of the Charophyta, namely to a much smaller side branch.

The saccoderm desmids and the placoderm or true desmids, unicellular or filamentous members of the Zygnematophyceae, are dominant in non-calcareous, acid waters of oligotrophic or primitive lakes (e.g. Wastwater), or in lochans, tarns and bogs, as in the West of Scotland, Eire, parts of Wales and of the Lake District.

[16] Klebsormidium, the type of the Klebsormidiophyceae, is a simple filamentous form with circular, plate-like chloroplasts, reproducing by fragmentation, by dorsiventral, biciliate swarmers and, according to Wille, a twentieth-century algologist, by aplanospores.

A new terrestrial genus found in sandy soil in the Czech Republic, Streptofilum, may belong in its own class due its unique phylogenetic position.

The chlorophyte and charophyte green algae and the embryophytes or land plants form a clade called the green plants or Viridiplantae, that is united among other things by the absence of phycobilins, the presence of chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b, cellulose in the cell wall and the use of starch, stored in the plastids, as a storage polysaccharide.

The charophytes and embryophytes share several traits that distinguish them from the chlorophytes, such as the presence of certain enzymes (class I aldolase, Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase, glycolate oxidase, flagellar peroxidase), lateral flagella (when present), and, in many species, the use of phragmoplasts in mitosis.