By Susan Milius
New genetic analyses are shaking the lowest living branch on the family tree of flowering plants. The question is: Should we move water lilies down to that ancient lineage?
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Last summer, presentations at the International Botanical Congress in St. Louis redrew the notoriously puzzling base of the tree. On the lowest branch that still has a living sprout, they placed a living fossil that few botanists have ever met. Amborella, a white-flowering shrub, grows wild only on the island of New Caledonia in the South Pacific (SN: 8/07/99, p. 85).