Some species of Annonaceae have been reported to have a spiral arrangement of branches on their orthotropic axes while other species have a distichous arrangement of branches, but the systematic distribution of this morphological difference in the family has not been studied. Growth architecture was surveyed for 48 genera and 100 species of Annonaceae using original observations of living plants and reports from the literature. The spiral branching pattern was found in all species of 27 genera examined, while distichous branching architecture characterized the other 21 genera. Architecture pattern is correlated with a difference in the orientation of the apical meristem of the primary shoot: in plants with spiral architecture the apex is erect; in plants with distichous architecture the apex is horizontal or drooping. The architecture data show remarkable congruence with recent infra-familial phylogenies constructed on the basis of rbcL and trnL-trnF sequence data, supporting several rearrangements of genera in the classification of this family, and may be more widely useful in the systematics of Annonaceae.