A sample of femoral bone and a series of adjacent soil samples near the femur were procured for each individual, as well as soil samples from positions which were once kidneys, liver and lungs, whenever these positions could be located with certainty in the field.
Posterior values for these divergences were 0.36 and 0.34 respectively; therefore, the relative positioning of divergences cannot be stated with certainty, although, the mean node ages suggest divergence 0.47 and 0.45 MYA.
Siphonospermum simplex clearly constitutes a new evolutionary lineage within the Gnetales, perhaps sister to Gnetum or to the Gnetum-Welwitschia clade, but its precise systematic position can currently not be resolved with certainty.
Phylogeny and character evolution in the Bennettitales, Erdtmanithecales and Gnetales are currently only partly understood and under debate; the exact systematic position of Siphonospermum simplex, i.e., its position within the Gnetales, cannot be resolved with certainty.
Only the position of G. aculeatus cannot be determined with certainty by the parsimony approach of gene losses.
These sequences were assembled to complete sequences with SeqMan II™ (DNASTAR inc).. Positions where the nucleotide could not be determined with certainty were coded with the appropriate IUPAC code.
