Recently, we proposed a 2-D graphical representation of DNA sequence [Bo Liao, A 2-D graphical representation of DNA sequence, Chem. Phys. Lett. 401 (2005) 196-199]. Based on this representation, we consider properties of mutations and compute the similarities among 11 mitochondrial sequences belonging to different species. The elements of the similarity matrix are used to construct phylogenic tree. Unlike most existing phylogeny construction methods, the proposed method does not require multiple alignment. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.