Comparative Plastomes of Curcuma alismatifolia (Zingiberaceae) Reveal Diversified Patterns among 56 Different Cut-Flower Cultivars.

(Zingiberaceae) is an ornamental species with high economic value due to its recent rise in popularity among floriculturists. Cultivars within this species have mixed genetic backgrounds from multiple hybridization events and can be difficult to distinguish via morphological and histological methods alone. Given the need to improve identification resources, we carried out the first systematic study using plastomic data wherein genomic evolution and phylogenetic relationships from 56 accessions of were analyzed. The newly assembled plastomes were highly conserved and ranged from 162,139 bp to 164,111 bp, including 79 genes that code for proteins, 30 tRNA genes, and 4 rRNA genes. The A/T motif was the most common of SSRs in the assembled genomes. The / values of most genes were less than 1, and only two genes had / values above 1, which were (1.15), and (1.13) with equal to 1. The sequence divergence between different varieties of was large, and the percentage of variation in coding regions was lower than that in the non-coding regions. Such data will improve cultivar identification, marker assisted breeding, and preservation of germplasm resources.