Abstract Ecological differences between coexisting species within plant communities can be assessed by considering functional and phylogenetic dissimilarities either separately or in a complementary way. Here, we studied (a) the potential overlap between functional (FD) and phylogenetic diversities (PD) and (b) their combined and unique roles in explaining community assembly patterns across different temperate vegetation types and across functional traits representing multiple dimensions of plant strategy (plant size, leaf, floral and reproductive, clonal and bud bank traits). We tested the strength of the PD–FD relationship within and across vegetation types and functional traits (Pearson correlations) and tested whether it depended on the strength of the phylogenetic signal (Pagel's lambda and Blomberg's K). We tested deviations from random expectations in FD and ‘decoupled FD’ (i.e. functional dissimilarity after accounting for the effect of phylogenetic distances between species) to reveal the importance of ecological differences for community assembly. PD–FD correlations were predominantly significant but rarely strong, and largely depended on the studied functional trait and vegetation type. Phylogenetic signals were partially but inconsistently related to the overlap between FD and PD. Community assembly patterns tended to shift from under‐dispersion (FD lower than random expectations) towards over‐dispersion (FD higher than random expectations) when functional distances were decoupled from phylogenetic distances indicating that species within the same clade were dissimilar to each other regarding their traits. However, we found the opposite pattern as well, mainly for floral and below‐ground traits, which indicated functional differentiation across clades. Synthesis. Decoupling functional and phylogenetic differences between species might provide further information on plant community assembly: showing cases where the strongest ecological differentiation between coexisting species occurs between phylogenetically related species rather than between phylogenetically unrelated ones.