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Eight words put V first and T third. The second box is a straight choice between I and O, and each side holds a small family.
I and O take three words each, which is six of the eight. A and E take one apiece and that is the entire second box.
So the useful question is which vowel sits there. Everything else on this page follows from the answer.
VOTED, VOTER and VOTES are the O branch in full. They share their first four letters and differ only at the end.
That makes the branch easy to reach and hard to finish. Landing anywhere inside it tells you the shape immediately, but the last box still has to be solved on its own.
VITAL is the common one. VITAE turns up in set phrases and VITTA is a botanical term, so realistically the I branch is VITAL and two long shots.
One word here repeats a letter, so a visible double narrows this page to a single answer straight away. Beyond that the endings scatter completely, with eight different letters closing eight words.
Both are ordinary words and they differ only in the last box. Neither is a good guess while that box is open, since one leaves the other live.
A climbing plant grown as fodder. It is the only word here with E in the second box and the only one ending in CH.
It appears on this list as a five letter entry. In ordinary use it turns up inside a longer phrase rather than standing alone.