Data from: Unraveling the evolutionary radiation of the families of the Zingiberales using morphological and molecular evidence

The Zingiberales are a tropical group of monocotyledons that includes the
bananas, gingers and their relatives. The phylogenetic relationships among
the currently recognized eight families are investigated here using
parsimony and maximum likelihood analyses of four character sets: 1)
morphological features; and sequence data of the 2) chloroplast rbcL gene;
3) chloroplast atpB gene; and 4) nuclear 18S rDNA gene. Outgroups for the
analyses include the closely related Commelinaceae + Philydraceae +
Haemodoraceae + Pontederiaceae + Hanguanaceae as well as seven more
distantly related monocots and paleoherbs. Only slightly different
estimates of evolutionary relationships result from the analysis of each
character set. The morphological data yield a single fully resolved most
parsimonious tree. None of the molecular data sets alone completely
resolves interfamilial relationships. The analyses of the combined
molecular data set provide more resolution than individual genes and the
addition of the morphological data provides a well-supported estimate of
phylogenetic relationships: (Musaceae ((Strelitziaceae, Lowiaceae)
(Heliconiaceae ((Zingiberaceae, Costaceae) (Cannaceae, Marantaceae))))).
Evidence from branch lengths in the parsimony analyses and from the fossil
record suggest that the Zingiberales originated in the early Cretaceous
and underwent a rapid radiation in the mid-Cretaceous by which time most
extant family lineages had diverged.