Fig. 3: Evolution of phenotypic complexity within the plant kingdom.

a, The distribution and reconstruction of complexity across the plant kingdom. The scale on the x axis reflects the number of positively coded characters for each taxon included in the analysis. The numbers associated with nodes on the tree reflect estimates for the complexity of these ancestral nodes. b, Relationship between phenotypic disparity (median pairwise distance) and phenotypic complexity, for each of the plant phyla. A significant phylogenetically corrected correlation was observed (Pearson’s r = 0.76, P < 0.001). c, Relationship between phenotypic complexity and the number of ancestral polyploidy events that lineage has experienced.