List of early-diverging flowering plant families

There are 27 families of flowering plants whose earliest ancestors diverged from what became the two most prominent groups of flowering plants, the eudicots and monocots.^[1][a] They are quite diverse, with woody and non-woody plants, evergreen and deciduous shrubs and trees, and plants that grow in soil, in water and on other plants.^[5]

Victoria amazonica has the largest undivided leaf of any plant, up to 2.65 m (8 ft 8 in) in diameter. The parasitic genera Hydnora and Prosopanche are the only flowering plants with no evidence of leaves or scales. Myristica fragrans, the source of nutmeg, was important in the 17th-century spice trade. Amborella may represent the earliest-diverging order of flowering plants.^[6]

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