High Risk of Extinction Across the Flowering Plant Tree of Life Revisited

Forest et al. (2026; Science , 392: 655−659) evaluated extinction risk for 335,497 angiosperm species worldwide, with the Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) approach, and identified 9945 EDGE species that disproportionately account for total threatened evolutionary history. Here, we demonstrate that Forest et al.'s results are severely flawed because the phylogenetic trees used by them are not appropriate for determining evolutionary distinctiveness of species and identifying EDGE species.