A Cladistic Analysis of Conifers: Preliminary Results

binary and multistate characters of 63 genera of conifers 1 on an extensive literature review and study of herbarium and living specimens.Subsequeni el id i -lie inaly: is of this matrix strongly supports the monopln h ol "conifers ihen i , no n-.r-n to exclude the taxads.Sciadopitys should be considered as constituting a separate family, the Sciadopityaceae, which appears to be the sister group of the Cupressaceae-Taxodi.i-ia.imuiii [In luo'lia'ia, m«l ■ u|.n .iceae together form a monophyletic group.The Cupressaceae form a monophyletic group within this lineage and can be divided into two groups, one of northern and the other of southern taxa.Within the Southern Hemisphere group, there are monophyletic groupings with separate Gondwanaland distributions...The remaining Taxodiaceae appear to be paraphyletic.The Taxaceae and Cephalotaxaceae also come out as sister taxa The Pinai e;.i , ppeai io be ih.istei !>roi p oi lln othei In mg conifers.The placement of Araucariaceae and Podocarpaceae in relationship to the other living conifers is problematic.Conifers have long been of interest to morphologists, anatomists, paleobotanists, and foresters.A cosmopolitan group, conifers include 60 to 63 genera and 500 to 600 species.Known from the fossil record from as far back as the Permian, conifers dominated the forest vegetation in the Mesozoic Era.They are the largest and most diverse group of living gymnosperms.To date, the monophyly of the conifers and the phylogenetic relationships of the families and genera have not been determined.Most modern textbooks follow Pilger (1926) in dividing the group directly into seven families (Taxaceae Sprengel, Podocarpaceae Endl., Araucariaceae Strasburger, Cephalotaxaceae Neger, Pinaceae Lindley, Taxodiaceae Neger, and Cupressaceae S. F. Gray), but other classifications