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This is a diagram of the evolutionary relationships in the Phrymaceae family—the majority of species occur in California while others are scattered around the globe. Here branch lengths are proportional to time, with the oldest lineages at the center of the picture estimated as diverging roughly 29-50 million years ago!  IF this age estimate is in the right ballpark, then this group of species diverged much longer ago than other famous California clades such as Clarkia.

Methods and a call for more data:
The topology and branch lengths were estimated here using a Bayesian analysis applied to Paul Beardsley’s original three gene dataset (see Grossenbacher et al. 2014 for methods). However, a large number of species are missing entirely, and some nodes are not very well supported (posterior probabilities are indicated above nodes when <0.95), and the taxonomy is undergoing revisions.

Nomenclature note:
For consistency, species names shown here are from Paul Beardsley’s original 2004 publication. Naomi Fraga and Guy Nesom are leading an effort to revise the taxonomy. I’ve added some of their revised genus names along branches leading to those genera.

Photos by Dena Grossenbacher, Joel Smith and Brian Green except for the following: Ashitaka: sessilifolius; Mark Eggar: calycinus, clivicola, cupreus, dentatus, longiflorus; Naomi Fraga: barbata, palmeri; Roger Fryer and Jill Newland: uvedaliae; Steve Laymon: douglasii; Ben Lowe: australis; Steve Matson: nanus; Bob Meinke: ampliatus, hymenophyllus; Ken Owen, Channel Islands Restoration: flemingii; Charles Russell: lewisii; Stephen Sarnoff: fruticosa; David Scherberich: tenellus; Steve Schoenig: alsinoides, breviflorus, exiguus, jepsonii, leptaleus, montioides, nanus, parryi, pictus, & rupicola; Aaron Schusteff: mohavensis; Seema Sheth: parishii; Yaowu Yuan: rupestris; flowerspictures.org: nepalensis; S. Australian Seed Conservation Centre: gracilis.