skbio.tree.TreeNode.lowest_common_ancestor¶

TreeNode.lowest_common_ancestor(tipnames)[source]¶

Lowest common ancestor for a list of tips

Parameters:	tipnames : list of TreeNode or str The nodes of interest
Returns:	TreeNode The lowest common ancestor of the passed in nodes
Raises:	ValueError If no tips could be found in the tree

Examples

>>> from six import StringIO
>>> from skbio import TreeNode
>>> tree = TreeNode.read(StringIO("((a,b)c,(d,e)f)root;"))
>>> nodes = [tree.find('a'), tree.find('b')]
>>> lca = tree.lowest_common_ancestor(nodes)
>>> print(lca.name)
c
>>> nodes = [tree.find('a'), tree.find('e')]
>>> lca = tree.lca(nodes)  # lca is an alias for convience
>>> print(lca.name)
root