Description

Our understanding of angiosperm relationships has changed dramatically during the past ten years. The big picture of angiosperm phylogeny emerged suddenly as a direct result of collaborative molecular analyses, and longstanding views of deep-level relationships required revision. Many major clades of angiosperms did not correspond to the classes, subclasses, and orders of modern classifications. Furthermore, a wealth of recent data coupled with current understanding of phylogeny permits reevaluation of many deep-rooted evolutionary hypotheses. Soltis et al. provide a comprehensive summary of current concepts of angiosperm phylogeny and illustrate the profound impact that this phylogenetic framework has had on concepts of character evolution. In so doing, they acknowledge inadequacies in both current understanding of phylogeny and knowledge of morphological characters, as well as the need for additional study.