Pteridosperms are the backbone of seed-plant phylogeny1

Abstract

Abstract Hilton J. (School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK) and R. M. Bateman (Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK). Pteridosperms are the backbone of seed-plant phylogeny. J. Torrey Bot. Soc. 133: 119–168. 2006.— Using Doyle (1996) as a starting point, we compiled a morphological cladistic matrix of 54 coded taxa (31 wholly extinct, and 23 at least partly extant) and 102 informative characters in order to explore relationships among gymnosperms in general and pteridosperms in particular. Our core analysis omitted six supplementary fossil taxa and yielded 21 most-parsimonious trees that generated two polytomies in the strict consensus tree, both among pteridosperms; the first affected several hydraspermans, and the second affected the three peltasperm/ corystosperm taxa analyzed. The resulting topology broadly resembled topologies generated during previous morphological cladistic analyses that combined subs...