Amborella

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Amborella

Amborella trichopoda is a rare, vesselless, understory shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticulture rather than strictly Botany category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall....
or small tree

TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
found only on the island of New Caledonia

New Caledonia

New Caledonia , is a "sui generis collectivity" of France located in the subregion of Melanesia in the Oceania. It comprises a main island , the Loyalty Islands, and several smaller islands....
. It is of great interest in plant systematics because modern molecular systematics data place it at or near the base of the flowering plant

Flowering plant

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Amborella trichopoda is a rare, vesselless, understory shrub

Shrub

TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
found only on the island of New Caledonia

New Caledonia

Flowering plant

The flowering plants or angiosperms are the most widespread group of Embryophytes. The flowering plants and the gymnosperms are the only extant groups of Spermatophyte....
s. That is, it represents a line of flowering plants that very early on diverged (about 130 million years ago) from all the other extant species of flowering plants. Comparing characteristics of this extant basal angiosperm, more derived flowering plants, and the fossil flowering plants may give us some idea of the characteristics of early flowering plants and how they have evolved, or changed through time.

Amborella trichopoda is a sprawling shrub or small tree with two-ranked leaves without stipules. The leaves

Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant Organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin, to expose the cells containing chloroplast to light over a broad area, and to allow light to penetrate fully into the tissues....
are alternately arranged, evergreen

Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaf all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....
, simple, with serrated and rippled margins, and about 8–10 cm long. The plant is dioecious

Plant sexuality

Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes Morphology aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....
: each flower produces both stamen

Stamen

The stamen is the male organ of a flower. Each stamen generally has a stalk called the filament , and, on top of the filament, an anther , and pollen sacs, called sporangium....
s and carpels, but only one sex develops fully and is fertile in the flowers of an individual plant, the structures of the other sex remaining undeveloped. The small flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s, 4–8 mm across, are in terminal cymose inflorescences or clusters, each flower with a perianth of undifferentiated tepal

Tepal

Tepals are elements of the perianth, or outer part of a flower, which include the petals or sepals. The term tepal is usually used when all segments of the perianth are of similar shape and color, or undifferentiated....
s arranged in a spiral, rather than in the whorls of more derived flowers. The fruit

Fruit

The term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. In botany, which is the scientific study of plants, fruits are the ripened Ovary of flowering plants....
is a red berry containing a single seed

Seed

A seed is a small Plant embryogenesis plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some Food storage. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant....
, 5–8 mm long.

It is placed alone in family Amborellaceae

Amborellaceae

Amborellaceae is a family of flowering plants Endemism to New Caledonia. The family consists of only a single species, Amborella trichopoda....
. In the APG II system

APG II system

A modern list of systems of plant taxonomy, the APG II system of plant classification was published in 2003 by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, APG, in...
this was left unplaced at order rank, at the base of the angiosperm cladogram. The Angiosperm Phylogeny Website

Angiosperm Phylogeny Website

Angiosperm Phylogeny Website is a well known web site dedicated to research on Angiosperm phylogeny and taxonomy.The site is hosted by the Missouri Botanical Garden website and maintained by researcher Peter F....
agrees with this phylogeny, but erects the monotypic order Amborellales to contain it.

Individuals of this species in the wild are being reduced by overgrazing

Overgrazing

Overgrazing occurs when plants are exposed to livestock grazing for extended periods of time, or without sufficient recovery periods. It reduces the usefulness of the land and is one cause of desertification and erosion....
and habitat destruction

Habitat destruction

Habitat destruction is the process in which natural habitat is rendered functionally unable to support the species originally present. In this process, plants and animals which previously used the site are displaced or destroyed, reducing biodiversity....
.

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