Phylogenomic analyses of the Photinia complex support the recognition of a new genus Phippsiomeles and the resurrection of a redefined Stranvaesia in Maleae (Rosaceae)

Photinia and its morphologically similar allies in Maleae (Rosaceae) consist of five currently recognized genera: Aronia, Heteromeles, Photinia, Pourthiaea, and Stranvaesia, and 68 species, distributed in Asia and North & Central America. Despite previous efforts to clarify relationships in this group, the generic delimitations have remained uncertain. Our goals were to reconstruct a robust phylogeny of Photinia and its close allies to test the monophyly of the currently recognized genera, especially Photinia and Stranvaesia, and the hybrid origin hypothesis of Photinia bodinieri. This study employs complete plastomes and the entire nrDNA assembled from the genome skimming approach with a broad taxon sampling of 81 species in 30 genera of Rosaceae, especially Maleae. Based on three datasets, including the whole plastome (WP), coding sequence (CDS) and nrDNA repeats, the results of Maximum likelihood (ML) and Bayesian analyses (BI) showed that Stranvaesia and Photinia, as previously ...