The figwort genus Scrophularia L. (Scrophulariaceae) comprises 200–300 species and is widespread throughout the temperate Northern Hemisphere. Due to reticulate evolution resulting from hybridization and polyploidization, the taxonomy and phylogeny of Scrophularia is notoriously challenging. Here we report the complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequences of S. henryi Hemsl. and S. dentata Royle ex Benth. and compare them with those of S. takesimensis Nakai and S. buergeriana Miq. The Scrophularia cp genomes ranged from 152 425 to 153 631 bp in length. Each cp genome contained 113 unigenes, consisting of 78 protein‐coding genes, 31 transfer RNA genes, and 4 ribosomal RNA genes. Gene order, gene content, AT content and IR/SC boundary structure were nearly identical among them. Nine cpDNA markers (trnH‐psbA, rps15, rps18‐rpl20, rpl32‐trnL, trnS‐trnG, ycf15‐trnL, rps4‐trnT, ndhF‐rpl32, and rps16‐trnQ) with more than 2% variable sites were identified. Our phylogenetic analyses including 55 genera from Lamiales strongly supported a sister relationship between ((Bignoniaceae + Verbenaceae) + Pedaliaceae) and (Acanthaceae + Lentibulariaceae). Within Scrophulariaceae, a topology of (S. dentata + (S. takesimensis + (S. buergeriana + S. henryi))) was strongly supported. The crown age of Lamiales was estimated to be 85.1 Ma (95% highest posterior density, 70.6–99.8 Ma). The higher core Lamiales originated at 65.6 Ma (95% highest posterior density, 51.4–79.4 Ma), with a subsequent radiation that occurred in the Paleocene (between 55.4 and 62.3 Ma) and gave birth to the diversified families. Our study provides a robust phylogeny and a temporal framework for further investigation of the evolution of Lamiales.

The genus Croomia (Stemonaceae) is an excellent model for studying the evolution of the Eastern Asia (EA)–Eastern North America (ENA) floristic disjunction and the genetic mechanisms of floral zygomorphy formation. In addition to the presence of both actinomorphic and zygomorphic flowers within the genus, species are disjunctively distributed between EA and ENA. However, due to the limited availability of genomic resources, few studies of Croomia have examined these questions. In this study, we sequenced the floral and leaf transcriptomes of the zygomorphic flowered Croomiaheterosepala and the actinomorphic flowered Croomia japonica, and used comparative genomic approaches to investigate the transcriptome evolution of the two closely related species. The sequencing and de novo assembly of transcriptomes from flowers of C. heterosepala (ChFlower), flowers of C. japonica (CjFlower), and leaves of C. japonica (CjLeaf) yielded 57,193, 62,131 and 64,448 unigenes, respectively. In addition, estimation of Ka/Ks ratios for 11,566 potential orthologous groups between ChFlower and CjFlower revealed that only six pairs had Ka/Ks ratios significantly greater than 1 and are likely under positive selection. A total of 429 single copy nuclear genes (SCNGs) and 21,460 expression sequence tags-simple sequence repeats (EST-SSRs) were identified in this study. Specifically, we identified seven CYC/TB1-like genes from Stemonaceae. Phylogenetic and molecular evolution analyses indicated that these CYC/TB1-like genes formed a monophyletic clade (SteTBL1) and were subject to strong purifying selection. The shifts of floral symmetry in Stemonaceae do not appear to be correlated with TBL copy number.

Vancouveria planipetala (Berberidaceae) is a perennial herb which has high ornamental and ecological values. In this study, we assembled the complete chloroplast (cp) genome of V. planipetala. The whole cp genome of V. planipetala is 156,871 bp in length, comprising a pair of inverted repeat (IR) regions (25,888 bp) separated by a large single copy (LSC) region (88,321 bp) and a small single copy (SSC) region (16,772 bp). The cp genome contains 114 unique genes, including 80 protein-coding genes, 30 tRNA, and four rRNA genes, with 17 genes duplicated in IRs. Phylogenetic analyses showed that Papaveraceae is the basal group of Ranunculales.