The controversies concerning the evolutionary mechanisms of flowering plants continue unabated in spite of the current trends toward the analysis of macromolecular data and of the growing body of distributional micromolecular data. The usual narrative approach to this latter effort is here replaced by a novel technique, quantitative phytochemistry. An evolutionary outline emerges and reveals modulation of antagonisms as the fundamental mechanism of angiosperm evolutionary ecology. Origin or operation of many systems can be rationalized analogously. It is concluded that the impact of opposing features possesses universal relevance.