AMBORELLA

Amborella trichopoda is a rare shrub found only in New Caledonia. It is of interest because genetic studies place it at or near the base of the flowering plants. That is, it was the first or nearly the first of the extant flowers to diverge from the others, and so gives us some ideas about what the ancestral angiosperms were like. Amborella produces moderate sized flowers, with both stamens and carpels.

In newer classifications, Amborella is given its own family and order. The older Cronquist system treated it as a family within the Laurales.