Procheş’ (2020) criticism of Mucina's (2019) research review on the evolution of the biome concept raises several points (in this issue of New Phytologist, pp. 1460–1462). It argues that evolutionary history is a tool reserved for delimiting phytochoria (phytogeographic regions) and it is not appropriate for biomes. Procheş notes that the ‘only things biomes and kingdoms [phytochoria] have in common is that they both have to be globally mappable’. This statement bears on our understanding of the biome as an ecological-evolutionary concept, and on how phytochoria and biomes are recognized (or delimited) and mapped. In the following, I respond to Procheş' arguments that will demonstrate a divergence in our thinking regarding the conceptual framework for differences in the delimitation of biomes and phytochory. Mucina (2019, p. 110) summarizes that ‘a biome is generally characterized by a typical physiognomy’, however it also states that ‘a biome undergoes assembly (and disassembly) at both ecological and evolutionary timescales; the processes underpinning the assembly shape the functionality of the biome by selecting for the biota equipped by the best-fitting set of traits matching the challenges of the environment’. Reichstein et al. (2014) and Moncrieff et al. (2016) might not have given us a recipe on how to ‘delimit’ biomes using evolutionary data, yet they have placed biomes into an inspiring evolutionary perspective. The biome is a biotic community, and every biotic community is a nonrandom phenomenon: its assembly affected by habitat filtering and biotic interactions, operating along both fine-scale and short-term temporal axes (ecological assembly rules), or large-scale and deep temporal scales (evolutionary assembly rules). The field of evolutionary biome assembly is still in its early stages of development. However, several studies addressing global (or hemispherical) scale are of landmark importance in this context. For instance, Fine & Ree (2006) correlated an integrated measure of biome size and age and estimated the tree species richness of biomes, investigating signals of time-integrated species-area in worldwide diversity patterns. Using a subset of global biome zonation, they found evidence that time-integrated species-area has an effect on current patterns of species richness across biomes. Perhaps one of the best examples documenting the importance of phylogenetic structure in understanding biome origins and dynamics is the study of biome niche conservativism focusing on the Southern Hemisphere by Crisp et al. (2009). These authors found that biome stasis at speciation has outweighed biome shifts by a ratio of more than 25 : 1, supporting the idea of conservative niche evolution within biomes. Kubota et al. (2018) analysed the phylogenetic structure of biomes at a global scale and evaluated to what extent region-specific processes have influenced large-scale diversity patterns of tree species communities across latitudes and continents. They showed that climatic filtering played a role in sorting species from the global species pool, and geographic filtering substantially contributed to the regional divergence of tropical vs extratropical biomes among continents. How ‘evolution’ (or evolutionary history) is involved in defining phytochoria must be considered here. Procheş’ claims that the boundaries of the phytochoria (‘in some cases’) are defined by barriers that reflect the ‘inability of lineages to move across…’. This is a good concept, but it is still waiting to be rigorously tested. To define such barriers operationally, especially when ‘historical limitations’ are involved, is not trivial. Exceptions may be cases such as Wallace's line, but we do not often see this concept implemented in the current biogeographic divisions. Some biogeographic regionalization systems (Weimarck, 1941; White, 1983; Takhtajan, 1986; van Wyk & Smith, 2001) claim to define their phytochoria using endemism. All of them fail, however, to show how this information is translated onto a map of phytochoria. The use of phylogenetic structures of regional/local floras (Daru et al., 2016, 2018 – introducing the concept of phyloregion) is so far the most convincing method in delimiting phytochoria on the grounds of evolutionary relationships. However, like many other phytochorion systems, the analyses are based on arbitrarily defined grid systems (see Table 1); hence, the way to define boundaries between phytochoria in operational terms remains unresolved. There are many ways to delimit biome and phytochorion – and these criteria could be (and are) very different; hence, they may or may not be spatially congruent. Procheş claims that contiguity is essential to the conceptualization of a phytochorion as a spatial unit of biogeographic regionalization. He documents his view by citing the Cape Floristic Region (CFR) as an example of a phytochorion that ‘always had significant components from other biomes’. Indeed, there are pockets of other biomes embedded within the Mediterranean-type shrublands, the physiognomic flagship of the CFR. However, except for the fact that the CFR is a neatly ‘contiguous’, and patch delimited by very stylistic borders, the evidence for this is not strong. Procheş also notes that phytochoria should have ‘high integral similarity’. This suggestion, however, is falsified by very low similarity between odd extrazonal and azonal pockets of forest, arid semi-deserts, and wetlands embedded in zonal fynbos and renosterveld shrublands, the flagship vegetation types of the CFR. All these zonal and azonal vegetation types fall within the border of a single phytochorion: the CFR. Many of the influential biogeographic regionalizations (see Table 1, focusing on Africa and Australia) show that the underpinnings of the most respected global phytogeographical classification by Takhtajan (1986) are sound, but his map is less than convincing in terms of border delimitation. It is not clear how ‘contiguous’ patches on a map delimited by bold straight lines of low fractality came to be devised. We must also consider whether biogeographers are setting themselves an unrealistic target by optimizing spatial contiguity of phytochoria at the expense of scientific reason. Researchers in both biogeography and vegetation ecology have engaged in pattern seeking through the simplification of spatial patterns aimed at the construction of informative spatial classification and mapping schemes. The field of biogeography has achieved this using a plethora of ‘biogeographic criteria’ (see Table 1), while the ecology of biomes applied their criteria of classification and mapping. However, if sensible ecologically and evolutionary informative criteria are chosen to classify biota of large areas, then it should not be surprising that the spatial congruence between biomes and phytochoria is considerable. The cross-pollination between biogeography and ecology of biomes in the field of defining spatial units has a long and colourful history. White's (1983) biogeographical division of Africa has been used for decades by vegetation ecologists as a ‘vegetation map of Africa’, simply because there was not a better one at hand. Using vegetation to delimit biogeographic units has a long tradition in Russia (e.g. Lavrenko, 1947); and a European biogeographic regionalization by Rivas-Martínez et al. (2004) relies on vegetation classification, too. The Interim Biogeographical Regionalization for Australia (IBRA; Department of Environment & Energy, 2007) makes no secret of the fact that the Western Australia section of the IBRA system is based on vegetation mapping by Beard (1980); and in Brazil, the term ‘bioma’ is used interchangeably for biomes and biogeographic realms (e.g. Joly et al., 1999). Finally, Good (1964), a true classic of global biogeography, starts his Chapter 2 ‘The division of the world into floristic regions’, with a section on ‘Major Zonation’, naturally based on global climatic patterns (and very much corresponding to zonobiomes) – setting the scene for other classification systems. Mucina (2019) illustrated that the research agendas of biome ecology are changing. In the past, the research focus was on biome patterns and seeking insight by invoking current ecological drivers of those patterns. Modern biome ecology is refocusing on the processes underpinning functional aspects of biome assembly at both ecological and evolutionary scales. Although our knowledge of the ecology of current biomes is well progressed, our understanding of the biome assembly along evolutionary timescales remains primordial. Evolutionary assembly processes of biotic communities are slow and, admittedly, challenging to study, yet I suggest that understanding of the evolutionary assembly is vital to the understanding of the nature of the biomes as we know them. Detection of niche conservativism at the biome level lends convincing support to the assumption that biomes are entities carrying a powerful evolutionary message. Nothing in ecology makes sense if not seen in the light of evolution, noted Dobzhansky (2013). This could be paraphrased as nothing in biome ecology makes sense if not understood in the light of evolutionary community assembly. It is at the large spatial and temporal scales where ecology and biogeography meet, exchange ideas, and learn from each other, and where they should look for common ground that unites their basic concepts. If biogeography is a science of distribution of life on our planet, and biotic communities (including biomes) are represented in nature by tangible units (patches) occupying space, then these biotic communities (including biomes) are as much the subject of plant ecology and vegetation science as they are the subject of biogeography. Biogeography does not own the evolutionary approach. Biomes are, indeed, everybody's kingdoms!