Drawing Natural History

Archaefructus was an ancient aquatic and herbaceous angiosperm (or flowering plant) which lived approximately 125 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous in what is now Northeastern China, and whose position in the evolutionary tree of angiosperms is, as of yet, unclear. It may have been a basal eudicot, suggesting that the history of angiosperms goes much farther back than we had previously thought. It may also be closer to Nymphaeales (water lilies and relatives). And finally, it also may've been one of the first ever angiosperms on Earth, solving Charles Darwin's "abominable mystery" regarding flowering plant evolution.