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Australian Journal of Botany Australian Journal of Botany Society
Southern hemisphere botanical ecosystems
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Monophyly of Verbascum (Scrophularieae : Scrophulariaceae): evidence from nuclear and plastid phylogenetic analyses

Farrokh Ghahremaninejad A E , Mehrshid Riahi A , Melina Babaei A , Faride Attar B , Lütfi Behçet C and Ali Sonboli D
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Department of Plant Biology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Kharazmi University, 43 Dr Mofatteh Avenue, 15719, Tehran, Iran.

B Department of Botany, School of Biology, College of Science, University of Tehran, PO Box 14155-6455, Tehran, Iran.

C Bingöl University, Faculty of Science and Arts, Biology Department, 12000 Bingöl, Turkey.

D Department of Biology, Medicinal Plant and Drug Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

E Corresponding author. Email: ghahremaninejad@khu.ac.ir

Australian Journal of Botany 62(8) 638-646 https://doi.org/10.1071/BT14159
Submitted: 15 July 2014  Accepted: 12 November 2014   Published: 26 March 2015

Abstract

Verbascum is one of the main genera of Scrophulariaceae, but delimitation and phylogenetic relationships of this genus are unclear and have not yet been studied using DNA sequences. Here, using four selected molecular markers (nrDNA ITS and the plastid spacers trnS/G, psbA-trnH and trnY/T), we present a phylogeny of Verbascum and test previous infrageneric taxonomic hypotheses as well as its monophyly with respect to Scrophularia. We additionally discuss morphological variation and the utility of morphological characters as predictors of phylogenetic relationships. Our results show that while molecular data unambiguously support the circumscription of Verbascum inferred from morphology, they prove to be of limited utility in resolving infrageneric relationships, suggesting that Verbascum ‘s high species diversity is due to rapid and recent radiation. Our work provides phylogenetic estimation of the genus Verbascum using molecular data and can serve as a starting point for future investigations of Verbascum and relatives.

Additional keywords: cpDNA, ITS rDNA, molecular phylogeny, Scrophularia.


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