As longer a branch is, more mutations are inferred to occurred in the lineage.
More mutation there are, more probable that homoplasies arise. Since we assume maximum parcimony, homoplasies are prone to be taken as homologies...
[]s,
Roberto Takata
I would appreciate a simple explanation for the concept of "long branch attraction". On-line glossaries use molecular phylogeny to describe it, but that approach makes no sense to me. Perhaps an explanation based on morphologic characters would sink in better.
TIA,