Trees before and after Darwin

Abstract

Phylogenetic trees published before Darwin’s On the Origin of Species are scarce. Lamarck (1809) and Barbançois (1816; J Phys Chim Hist Nat Arts 82, 444) are the first and only trees devoted to illustrating the genealogical connections between organisms of different species and different higher taxa. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, most of the trees depicted in papers dealing with natural history were classifications; classifications in the shape of trees, but classifications nonetheless. Those published by Bronn (1858) are a good example. After Darwin, phylogenetic trees incorporating the time dimension flourished. In the first half of the 20th century, the Modern Synthesis failed to renew and rejuvenate the intuitive construction of trees. It wasn’t until the appearance of Hennig’s phylogenetic systematics that the real nature of the connection between phylogeny and the pre-Darwinian concept of homology was made clear.

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