Characteristics and phylogenetic analysis of the complete chloroplast genome of <i>Cornus hongkongensis</i> Hemsl. 1888 (Cornaceae)

<i>Cornus hongkongensis</i> Hemsl. 1888, native to Hong Kong, belongs to the subgenus Syncarpea within the <i>Cornus</i> genus of the <i>Cornaceae</i> family. The complete chloroplast genome of <i>C. hongkongensis</i> spans 156,954 bp, comprising four subregions: a large single-copy region (86,290 bp), a small single-copy region (18,394 bp), and a pair of inverted repeats (26,135 bp). Within the chloroplast genome of <i>C. hongkongensis</i>, we identified 113 unique genes, including 80 protein-encoding genes, four ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes, and 30 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes. Phylogenetic analysis based on the complete chloroplast genome of 30 related taxa of the <i>Cornus</i> genus indicates that <i>C. hongkongensis</i> has not formed a monophyletic lineage. Analyses of sequence divergence found three intergenic regions including <i>rps</i>19-<i>rpl</i>22, <i>ccs</i>A-<i>ndh</i>D, and <i>atp</i>H-<i>atp</i>I, exhibiting a high degree of variations. The first chloroplast genome of <i>C. hongkongensis</i> was reported in this work contributes to the enrichment of genomic data for the genus <i>Cornus</i>.