ABSTRACT
The use of geographical distribution as a classificatory character is an old-established practice among museum and herbarium systematists. The specimens with which they deal normally bear some sort of locality label, and in large collections species of the more extensive genera are commonly grouped by geographical regions. The natural areas of distribution of plants and animals provided one of the strongest lines of evidence for organic evolution, and against the biblical creation story, in the controversies of the nineteenth century; the evidences for phylogeny which they offer are none the less important today, though frequently ignored or misinterpreted. The phylogenetic systematist should be profoundly interested in the natural distribution of his organisms, as it offers one of the most useful non-morphological lines of phylogenetic evidence available to us, particularly in determining the relative ages of groups at the lower classificatory levels.
