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Science 3 May 2002:
Vol. 296. no. 5569, pp. 899 - 904
DOI: 10.1126/science.1069439
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Reports

Archaefructaceae, a New Basal Angiosperm Family

Ge Sun,1* Qiang Ji,2 David L. Dilcher,3* Shaolin Zheng,4 Kevin C. Nixon,5 Xinfu Wang6

Archaefructaceae is proposed as a new basal angiosperm family of herbaceous aquatic plants. This family consists of the fossils Archaefructus liaoningensis and A. sinensis sp. nov. Complete plants from roots to fertile shoots are known. Their age is a minimum of 124.6 million years from the Yixian Formation, Liaoning, China. They are a sister clade to all angiosperms when their characters are included in a combined three-gene molecular and morphological analysis. Their reproductive axes lack petals and sepals and bear stamens in pairs below conduplicate carpels.

1 Research Center of Palaeontology, Jilin University, Changchun 130026, China.
2 Geological Institute of Chinese Academy of Geosciences, Beijing 100037, China.
3 Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA.
4 Shenyang Institute of Geology and Mineral Resources, Shenyang 110032, China.
5 L. H. Bailey Hortorium, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
6 Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Academia Sinica, Nanjing 210008, China.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: sunge{at}jlu.edu.cn, dilcher{at}flmnh.ufl.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)