The mitochondrial genome of land plants has a high level of evolutionary plasticity that may impair its use in phylogenetic analyses. Among the most challenging properties are RNA editing and retroprocessing of edited mRNA into the mitochondrial and/or nuclear genome as processed paralogs. Using mtDNA sequence data encoding for apocytochrome B (cob) and the alpha subunit of F1-ATP synthase (atp1) across the monocots, and in two subclades, alismatids and Agavaceae, it is shown that edited sites, despite being more homoplasious than non-edited sites, perform well on the trees, and that they are not randomly distributed among taxa but have a clade specific distribution. Indirect evidence for the presence of processed paralogs is presented and their likely evolutionary fate discussed.