Tree from Haeckel's, Anthropogenie oder Entwicklungsgeschichte des Menschen, originally published in 1874. Translated version entitled: The Evolution of Man, 1879. A phylogenetic tree or evolutionary tree is a branching diagram or tree showing the inferred evolutionary relationships among various biological species or other entities based upon similarities and differences in their physical and/or genetic characteristics. The taxa joined together in the tree are implied to have descended from a common ancestor. In a rooted phylogenetic tree, each node with descendants represents the inferred most recent common ancestor of the descendants, and the edge lengths in some trees may be interpreted as time estimates. Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (1834-1919), an eminent German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology, including anthropogeny, ecology, phylum, phylogeny, and the kingdom Protista. Haeckel promoted and popularized Charles Darwin's work in Germany.