RøNSTED, NINA. Royal Danish School of Pharmacy, Department of Medicinal Chemistry, Universitetsparken 2, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark. - Phylogenetic relationships within Plantago (Plantaginaceae) based on ITS and trnL sequence data.
Plantago (Plantaginaceae) is a genus of more than 200 annual
and perennial herbs and semi-shrubs with a worldwide distribution. The
genus is considered monophyletic, but some of the infrageneric
relationships are ambiguous. The first molecular phylogeny at the
genus level is presented. About 60 representative species from the 24
series, as defined by Rahn (1996) were sequenced for nuclear ITS and
chloroplast trnL regions. The phylogenetic analysis is correlated with
Rahns morphological phylogeny from 1996, and with known iridoid
glucoside patterns, but subgenus Albicans is paraphyletic. Five
monophyletic subgenera are recognised, Plantago,
Coronopus, Psyllium, Littorella and
Bougeria. Littorella is sister to the other subgenera of
Plantago. Series Hymenopsyllium is surprisingly closer
related to section Gnaphaloides than to section
Albicans. Only part of the sections can be resolved into
series. The DNA variation within subgenus Plantago is low, as
also expected from morphology.
Key words: iridoid glucosides, ITS, molecular phylogeny, Plantago, trnL