Amborella

Biol 324 Introduction To Seed Plant Taxonomy

Amborella
This single species is the sister group of all other angiosperms, and for this reason sometimes called the most "basal" lineage of flowering plants.

- New Caledonia – very interesting because it is home to many endemic angiosperms and interesting gymnosperms, including members of the conifer families Podocarpaceae and Araucariaceae

Amborella is a rainforest understory shrub
- Small flowers, plants dioecious, other parts sterile, stamens are leaflike, but whorls grade into each other (not distinctive whorls)
- Primitive characters: wood vesselless, perianth parts undifferentiated, spiral, indefinite in number, pistils simple (single carpel).
- Derived characters: flowers unisexual, carpels in a single whorl, pollen inaperturate (?)

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