The basal angiosperms are the flowering plants which diverged from the lineage leading to most flowering plants. The basal angiosperms are only a few hundred species, compared with hundreds of thousands of species of eudicots, monocots or magnoliids.¹

The APG II system does not recognize a group called "paleodicots" but assigns these early-diverging dicots to several orders and unplaced families: Amborellaceae, Nymphaeaceae (including Cabombaceae), Austrobaileyales, Ceratophyllales (not included among the "paleodicots" by Leitch et al. 1998), Chloranthaceae, and the magnoliid clade (orders Canellales, Piperales, Laurales, and Magnoliales). Subsequent research has added Hydatellaceae to the paleodicots.¹

Although APG does not formally recognize paleodicots, for the purpose of this page and display purposes we are using the broader term here in the EEB Greenhouses.

References:

1. Basal Angiosperms at Wikipedia. Accessed 18 July 2015.
2. Soltis, Pam, Doug Soltis, and Christine Edwards. 2005. Angiosperms. Flowering Plants at the Tree of Life Web Project. Accessed 18 July 2015.