Evolutionary trends of several selected characters in Apiaceae tribe Scandiceae were investigated from the phylogeny which was constructed on the basis of nuclear rDNA ITS sequences. The distribution of cytological, palynological, phytochemical, and fruit morphological characters shows that many of these characters are highly homoplastic, occurring independently multiple times throughout the trees. Therefore, those characters are not useful for the delimitation of genera or subtribes within Scandiceae. In contrast to the variable fruit secondary appendages, the fruit primary appendages show little variation in their shapes. These primary appendage characters are considered to support many of the major clades recognized in the ITS sequence-based phylogeny.
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