Genomic and Imaging Data Supporting the Digitization of Ruili Botanical Garden

Genome sequencing has been widely used in plant research to construct reference genomes and elucidate evolutionary insights. However, only a limited number of plant species have had their whole genome sequenced, and the limited taxon information of these species has further restrained the utility of these data. <br>Here, we comprehensively sampled and sequenced vascular plant species in and around Ruili Botanical Garden, located in South West China. We sequenced 761 samples out of the total 1,093 collected voucher specimens stored in the Herbarium of China National GeneBank (HCNGB). These 761 samples represented 689 vascular plant species from 137 families belonging to 49 orders. Of these, 257 samples were identified to the species level and 504 samples to the family level using specimens and chloroplast sequences. We generated 54 Tb sequencing data in total, which resulted in an average sequencing depth of 60× for these species, as estimated by the genome size. A reference phylogeny was reconstructed with 78 chloroplast genes for molecular identification and possible applications.<br>In this study, we established a large dataset of vascular plants genomes, with both the high-depth whole genome sequencing data and the voucher specimens, making it valuable dataset for plant genome researches and applications. And providing insight into the feasibility and technical requirements for planetary scale projects such as the 10 thousand Plant Genome Project (10KP) and Earth BioGenome Project (EBP).