Arabidopsis thaliana (/ərˌæbɨˈdɒpsɪsˌθɑːliˈɑːnə/ thale cress, mouse-ear cress or Arabidopsis) is a small flowering plant native to Europe and Asia. A winter annual with a relatively short life cycle, arabidopsis is a popular model organism in plant biology and genetics. For a complex multicellular eukaryote, Arabidopsis thaliana has a relatively small genome of approximately 135 megabase pairs (Mbp). It was long thought to have the smallest genome of all flowering plants, but the smallest known flowering plants'...