A molecular phylogeny of Cercis L. (fabaceae) using the chloroplast trnl-F DNA sequences

Abstract

This study included 13 Cercis taxa from different parts of the world and an outgroup, Bauhinia faberi. Although analysis of the trnL-F cpDNA sequences did not resolve the branches of the phylogenetic tree well, it did shed light to some extent on the phylogeny of Cercis taxa. Pairwise distances using Jukes-Cantor model among Cercis taxa for the trnL-F data was very low among many Cercis taxa (0.00%) as expected because the sequenced area is a coding region of the tRNAs. The highest distance was 0.064% between C. racemosa and C. chingii and C. yunnanensis and C. chingii. Our analysis indicated that C. chingii is very different from the other genus members and C. yunnanensis, C. racemosa, C. glabra, C. gigantea and C. chuniana formed well a clade.