Any organism, population, or species from which some other organism, population, or species is descended by reproduction. A diagram, resulting from a cladistic analysis, which depicts a hypothetical branching sequence of lineages leading to the taxa under consideration. The points of branching within a cladogram are called nodes.
All taxa occur at the endpoints of the cladogram.
Contrast with homology. All the taxa descended from a major cladogenesis event, recognized by possessing the clade's synapomorphy. Describes a character state that is present in one or more subclades, but not all, of a clade under consideration. A derived character state is inferred to be a modified version of the primitive condition of that character, and to have arisen later in the evolution of the clade. Term used to describe numbers of taxa, or variation in morphology.