"There’s no such thing as a tree (phylogenetically)" by Eukaryote
LessWrong (Curated & Popular)
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The Evolution of Trees
A tree is a big, long-lived, self-supporting plant with leaves and wood. Non-tree woody plants like lianus, thick woody vines, and shrubs are not trees. The confusing part is a tree evolving into a dandelion or vice versa. All woody plants do, in a sense, begin life as herbaceous plants. There is a common structure in herbaceous plants that, when slightly tweaked, dendronizes them into woody plants. Say a new plant arrives on a relatively barren island, and some of the offspring of that plant become tree-like. If plants native to the Canary Islands, wood independently evolved at least 38
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