XVI International Botanical Congess

Wood anatomical characters have been used in studies of plant taxonomy and systematics for many years and today there are extensive data available for use in cladistic studies. Wood characters are no different from any other source of morphological-anatomical characters in their potential utility in cladistic analyses. We discuss the issues that are most relevant to the use of wood characters in cladistics, including quantitative vs. qualitative characters, continuous vs. discrete variation, independence of characters, variation within vs. among taxa, and missing data. To illustrate these and other issues in the application of the cladistic method, we conclude with a critique and discussion of several recently published cladistic studies that include wood characters.