ABSTRACT
Angiosperms form the most dominant group of plants with at least 253,300 species (Thorne, 2007), a number much greater than all other groups of plants combined together. Not only in numbers, angiosperms are also found in a far greater range of habitats than any other group of land plants. The phylogeny of angiosperms has, however, been a much-debated subject, largely because of very poor records of the earliest angiosperms. These earliest angiosperms probably lived in habitats that were not best suited for fossilization. Before trying to evaluate the phylogeny, it would be useful to have an understanding of the major terms and concepts concerning phylogeny in general, and with respect to angiosperms in particular.
