List of early-diverging flowering plant families

a wading bird with large water lilies
Victoria amazonica and a heron
Flowering plant families (APG IV)
Early-diverging flowering plants
Monocots: Alismatids • Commelinids • Lilioids
Eudicots
Basal eudicots • Dilleniales and Gunnerales
Superasterids: Basal superasterids (and the asterids)
Asterids: Basal asterids • Euasterids
Superrosids: Saxifragales (and the rosids)
Rosids: COM clade • Malvids • Nitrogen-fixing clade • Vitales and Zygophyllales

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]

  1. ^ Christenhusz, Fay & Chase 2017, pp. 10–11.
  2. ^ Christenhusz, Fay & Chase 2017.
  3. ^ Angiosperm Phylogeny Group 2016.
  4. ^ POWO.
  5. ^ Christenhusz, Fay & Chase 2017, pp. 87–114.
  6. ^ Christenhusz, Fay & Chase 2017, pp. 88, 91, 100–102.


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).