Meristems are indispensable for plant growth and development, but whether all land plants share a conserved mechanism for meristem maintenance is still unclear. To answer this question, Fu et al. examined the role of the homolog of PLETHORA (PLT) -a master regulator of meristem maintenance in vascular plants- in the liverwort Marchantia polymorpha, which is regarded to be among the earliest land plants. The cover image shows the meristem region of a 15-day-old Mpplt mutant plant examined by scanning electron microscopy. Remarkably, the mutant meristem is covered by numerous gemma-like structures, indicating the loss of meristem identity.