Allium sect. Decipientia (Amaryllidaceae): Morphological characters do not reflect the evolutionary history verified by molecular markers. Phylogeny of Allium section Decipientia

Phylogenetic and phylogeographic patterns within the section Decipientia (Allium subgenus Melanocrommyum) were revealed, covering most species of this section and including species of most other sections of the monophyletic subgenusMelanocrommyum. We constructed a molecular phylogeny based on predominantly non-coding sequences from nuclear ribosomal RNA regions (ITS) and four plastid (chloroplast) regions (trnL-F, atpB-rbcL, rpL32-trnL, and rps16 intron)In Allium sect. Decipientia, 2n = 16 and 2n = 20 chromosomes were confirmed and partly newly reported. The karyotype of A. tulipifolium is similar to those of other members of subg. Melanocrommyum, but only preliminary chromosomal dimensions could be presented for the species with 2n = 20 chromosomes. All plants with 2n = 20 form a clear monophyletic clade as a sister group to the European A. decipiens and A. quercetorum with 2n = 16 and are genetically very distant to the Eurasian steppe species with 16 chromosomes, A. tulipifolium and A. robustum. The group with 2n = 20 comprises A. grande, A. subscabrum, A. viridulum, and the newly described taxa A. koksuense and A. lepsicum. These three groups are also formally recognized as new subsections Viceniprason, Decipientia, and Tulipifolia. A nomenclatorial conspectus and a key for determination of the members of Allium sect. Decipientia are also given. According to the time divergence estimation, subg. Melanocrommyum diversified around 25 Myr ago in the late Oligocene. The split between most species of sect. Decipientia and other taxa of the subgenus Melanocrommyum was estimated at early Miocene, which furthermore diversified in two sister clades in middle Miocene. Allium decipiens split off from the ancestors of the 2n = 20 species also in the middle Miocene. Further branching within this species group is of rather young age, within the last 6 Myr (in the end of Miocene to late Pliocene and Pleistocene).