Background There are conflicting views between palaeobotanists and plant systematists/
evolutionary biologists regarding the occurrence of plant speciation in the Quaternary …

In a recent issue of Molecular Evolution and Systematics, Chaw & al.(1997) presented a
phylogeny of modern seed plants based on comparisons of rRNA sequences. Studies of this …

Palaeobotany and palynology are the main direct sources of evidence for studying
vegetation diversity dynamics through geological time. However, plant fossil diversity is …

In order to gain insights on the controversial question of the value of fossils in understanding
phylogeny and macroevolution, we used numerical parsimony methods to analyze a data …

This paper presents a perspective on the relationship between cladistic methods and the
study of fossil plants. Paleobotany has been slow in evaluating the potential of these and …

Phylogenetic trees based upon DNA sequence data, when calibrated with a dimension of
time, allow inference of:(i) the pattern of accumulation of lineages through time;(ii) the time of …

Developing a detailed estimate of plant phylogeny is the key first step toward a more
sophisticated and particularized understanding of plant evolution. At many levels in the …

Background Some of the evolutionary history of land plants has been documented based on
the fossil record and a few broad-scale phylogenetic analyses, especially focusing on …

Fossil plants are extinct plants whose remains (referred to as plant fossils) are found
preserved in sedimentary deposits. Plant fossils are classified using fossil-taxa as defined in …

The phylogenetic relationships of some Neotropical plant groups have proved to be different
from expectation assuming plate tectonics as the underlying model, and these unanticipated …