The species is dioecious. This means that each plant produces either "male flowers" (meaning that they have functional stamens) or "female flowers" (flowers with functional carpels), but not both. At any one time, a dioecious plant produces only functionally staminate or functionally carpellate flowers. Staminate ("male") "Amborella" flowers do not have carpels, whereas the carpellate ("female") flowers have non-functional "staminodes", structures resembling stamens in which no pollen develops. Plants may change from one reproductive morphology to the other. In one study, seven cuttings from a staminate plant produced, as expected, staminate flowers at their first flowering, but three of the seven produced carpellate flowers at their second flowering.