Here’s another effort (2008) to draw the tree of life. It doesn’t look much like a tree, more like a feather. But then neither did this 2010 one from BioMed Central. Explaining their rootless tree of life, the editors said,
Our protocellular lipid bilayer surrounding a circular representation of a rootless phylogenetic tree omits explicit reference to molecular and cellular structure and much else; and purists will find fault with the phylogeny. We must ask you all to settle for the Gestalt.
We can tell that a field is in ferment when its visuals alter dramatically.