Archaefructus, an early flower in the water

Archaefructus is preserved whole in the Yixian lake sediments: a slender aquatic plant with dissected leaves and reproductive axes bearing paired stamens and carpels but no obvious petals or sepals. When first described it was claimed as the earliest flowering plant and used to argue that angiosperms began in water; both claims have since been tempered, and its age was revised from Jurassic down into the Cretaceous. It remains one of the most complete early angiosperms known, and a reminder that the first flowers need not have looked like flowers.