Amborella

Amborella is a monotypic genus of understory shrubs or small trees endemic to Grande Terre, the main island of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific Ocean. It is the only member of the family Amborellaceae and the order Amborellales, and it contains a single species, Amborella trichopoda. Molecular phylogenetic analyses consistently place Amborella as the sister group to every other flowering plant, making it critical to understanding angiosperm evolution; it is understood to be the most basal living flowering plant and is treated as one of several groups called basal angiosperms.