Amborellaceae facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Amborella |
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| Amborella trichopoda | |
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Amborellales
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Amborellaceae
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Amborellaceae is a special family of flowering plants. It comes from an island called New Caledonia, which is in the Pacific Ocean. This family has only one type of plant in it: Amborella trichopoda. Scientists believe this plant is the oldest living relative of all other flowering plants on Earth. This means it can teach us a lot about how flowering plants first developed.
What is Amborella?
Amborella trichopoda is a unique plant. It grows as a sprawling evergreen shrub or a small tree. Evergreen means it keeps its leaves all year round, just like a pine tree. Its branches tend to spread out widely.
Unique Plant Parts
The inside of Amborella plants is different from other flowering plants. Plants have special tubes called xylem that carry water from the roots to the leaves. Most flowering plants have two types of tubes in their xylem: tracheids and vessel elements.
However, Amborella only has tracheids. It doesn't have vessel elements. Scientists think that having only tracheids is a very old or "primitive" feature for a flowering plant. This is another reason why Amborella is so important for understanding plant evolution.
Images for kids
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Specimen in Berkeley, California
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Young leaves
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Buds and staminate (male) flowers
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AmborellaNoLabels.jpg
Diagram of a female flower with 5 carpels and 2 staminodes
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