This function converts a dendrogram into an object of class "phylo" (see Paradis et al 2004).
References
Paradis E, Claude J, Strimmer K, (2004) APE: analyses of phylogenetics and evolution in R language. Bioinformatics 20, 289-290.
Paradis E (2008) Definition of Formats for Coding Phylogenetic Trees in R. http://ape-package.ird.fr/misc/FormatTreeR_24Oct2012.pdf
Paradis E (2012) Analysis of Phylogenetics and Evolution with R (Second Edition). Springer, New York.
Examples
newick <- "(A:0.1,B:0.2,(C:0.3,D:0.4):0.5);"
x <- read.dendrogram(text = newick)
y <- as.phylo(x)
z <- as.dendrogram(y)