The complete chloroplast genome of Chinese medicine cultivar species of Rehmannia glutinosa (Orobanchaceae)

The genus Rehmannia Libosch. ex Fisch. & C. A. Mey. consists of six species endemic to China (Xia et al., 2009). Of these, R. glutinosa (Gaertn.) Libosch. ex Fisch. & C. A. Mey. is an important species in traditional Chinese medicine and also cultivated in Japan and Korea (Rix, 1987). Although the complete chloroplast genome of six species in Rehmannia are reported by Zeng et al (2007), the cultivar of R. glutinosa in its geo-authentic distribution is unknown. The cultivar of R. glutinosa was proved to derive from the wild population (Xia et al., 2018). Dense and hypertrophic leaves and expansion tuberous root are the main domestication trait of R. glutinosa cultivar Wen 85-5 which is different from wild population. Modern pharmacological studies have demonstrated that the medicinal part of R. glutinosa mainly come from the expansion tuberous root of cultivar of R glutinosa. In this study, we report the complete chloroplast genome (cp genome) of R. glutinosa cultivar Wen 85-5, identify its distinctive insert and deletion, and infer phylogenetic relationships of this species and other taxa within Rehmannia.