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Article: Phylogeny
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- Plant Sciences
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Phylogeny
Before the mid-1800s, classification of organisms into groups, called
taxa
, was generally based on overall similarity of physical appearance. There was no guiding principle as to why the members of one group were more similar to each other than to the members of other groups. In 1859, Charles Darwin's
Origin of Species
was published, and Darwin's theory of evolution provided the explanation that natural groups occur because the members of the group are the descendants of a common ancestor. Based on Darwin's principles, in 1866, the German naturalist, Ernst Haeckel, coined the term
phylogeny
to describe the "science of the changes in form through which the phyla or organic
...