[1] Description of the new species by Dr. Kathleen Pigg, Richard Dillhoff, Melanie DeVore and Wesley Wehr was based on the study of a single complete fruiting structure specimen.

The holotype fossil, number "UWBM 97819", being housed in the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Seattle, Washington.

[1] The holotype was recovered from the Ypresian age Tranquille Formation outcropping at the McAbee Fossil Beds near Cache Creek, BC, which is designated the type locality.

Broadly circumscribed, four other species have been identified in the highlands Paraconcavistylon wehrii, Pentacentron sternhartae, Tetracentron hopkinsii and Trochodendron nastae.

This has long been considered a very primitive character, resulting in the classification of these two genera in a basal position in the angiosperms; however, genetic research by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group has shown it to be in a less basal position (early in the eudicots), suggesting that the absence of vessel elements is a secondarily evolved character, not a primitive one.