Property of phylogenetic trees where the common ancestor to all depicted taxa is suggested as the oldest ancestor found on the tree.

Contrasting a rooted tree, in an tree, are depicted without implying what served as literally the root of the depicted lineages. That is, without a root, the common ancestor to a presented clade is neither implied nor depicted whereas with a root the common ancestor is both implied and depicted.

While rooted trees attempt to suggest where taxa come from (), an unrooted tree depicts only degrees of similarities (homology between those taxa.