New insights into the phylogeny of (Apiaceae, Apioideae) based on morphological and molecular data.

is a Sino-Himalayan endemic genus of Apiaceae and distributed in high-elevations from Nepal to SW China. In this study, morphological characteristics were combined with nuclear internal transcribed spacer (ITS) and two chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) intron sequences ( and ) to determine the phylogenetic placement of and the infrageneric relationships between five species. The results confirmed that was a polyphyletic group separated into two clades, and East Asia clades. , the generic type of , , and are in the clade. Among them, the first three species are clustered into a subclade and are closely related to the genus . While has a close affinity with . did not ally with its congeners we collected and is allied closely with members of the distantly related East Asia clade. In addition, the fruit of the clade species is usually oblong-ovoid or ovoid, and the pollen is super-rectangular, while the species in the East Asia clade have broad-ovoid fruit and sub-rhomboidal pollen. This study has furnished cumulative evidence to reduce phylogenetic uncertainty and provide a more comprehensive description of the plant morphology, fruit morphology and anatomy, and pollen morphology of these five Chinese species.