The divergent nature of evolution suggests that securing the human benefits that are directly provided by biodiversity may require counting on disparate lineages of the Tree of Life. However, quantitative evidence connecting evolutionary history to human well-being is still surprisingly tenuous even after 25 years of academic research, and not without controversy. While some authors hold that maximizing phylogenetic diversity should lead to recognition of high levels of useful feature diversity, others have suggested that the phylogenetic approach can be misleading. Here, I provide empirical evidence supporting that evolutionary history is a powerful means to evince significant levels of plant services for humankind, both globally and across the main continental regions of the world. These findings establish an empirical foundation that links evolutionary history to human well-being, and they will serve as a discussion baseline to promote better-grounded accounts of the services that are directly provided by biodiversity.