Characterization of the complete chloroplast genome of ‘Quanhong poplar’ (Populus deltoides W. Bartram ex Humphry Marshall)

Leaf color is an important factor for horticultural crops considered by breeders, which also attracts more and more attentions from economists and academics. ‘Quanhong poplar’ (QHP), with its bright and attractive reddish-purple leaves rarely seen in other parts of the world, is a very precious color-leaf cultivar, which has been widely cultivated as landscape tree in China. In the present study, the complete chloroplast genome of ‘QHP’ was characterized by reference-based assembly using whole-genome sequencing data. The total chloroplast genome size of ‘QHP’ is 156,950 bp, which includes a pair of inverted repeat regions (IRs) of 27,649 bp each, a small single-copy region (SSC) of 16,563 bp, and large single-copy region (LSC) of 85,089 bp. There are 130 genes predicted from the chloroplast genome, including 85 protein-coding genes, 37 tRNA genes and 8 rRNA genes. The GC content of chloroplast genome in ‘QHP’ was 36.68%. The phylogenetic analysis based on the reported chloroplast genomes of <em>Populus</em> showed that the chloroplast of ‘QHP’ is most closely related to several kinds of <em>Populus deltoides</em>.