Yulan Peng

Youngia japonica is a synanthropic species of the Asteraceae family valued for its dual applications in both medicine and cuisine. It exhibits strong stres

Blumea axillaris is a medicinal herbaceous plant belonging to the genus Blumea in the Asteraceae family. This study reports the first complete chloroplast genome of B. axillaris, assembled as 151,043 bp with a typical quadripartite structure. It contains 134 genes (90 protein-coding, 36 tRNA, and 8 rRNA). A double inversion was detected relative to Barnadesia caryophylla. Phylogenetic analysis confirmed the sister relationship between B. axillaris and B. oxyodonta. These results provide valuable chloroplast resources for phylogenetic studies and resource development of B. axillaris

The pollen morphology of 20 species from Blumea and Cyathocline Cass. was investigated using a light microscope (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to explore their taxonomic significance. This study showed that pollen grains of these species were usually tricolporate, rarely tetracolporate (B. sinuata). Nine pollen types were distinguishable through the exine sculpture characters and the number of apertures. It was easily distinguished Cyathocline from species of Blumea s. str. by its much smaller size (15.04 μm × 15.07 μm) and sparse and longer spines (24 spines, spine length 4.23 μm) with acute apex, which suggest that C. purpurea might not belong to the genus Blumea s. str. The palynological characteristics indicated that Section Macrophllae and Section Paniculatae of Blumea were not monophyletic groups. The pollen morphology differentiation of B. lacera clade is consistent with the interspecific relationship revealed by the molecular phylogenetic tree. However, the pollen morphology of the Blumea densiflora clade is inconsistent with the interspecific relationship based on molecular phylogenetic analysis. This palynology research can only partly support the previously published molecular phylogeny of Blumea s. str.

A new species, Blumea htamanthii Y.L. Peng, C.X. Yang & Y. Luo from Myanmar is described. The new species is distinguished from B. bifoliata by its leaves with short petioles, abaxially purple, leaf blade with papillary hair and sparse multicellular villous, capitula with 1–4 heads, glabrous florets and usually unbranched stems. A key to Blumea species in Myanmar is provided.

In this work, we describe a new species, Ainsliaea daheishanensis Y.L.Peng, C.X.Yang & Y.Luo, based on morphological traits. The new species was discovered in the mountains of Yunnan, near the border between Myanmar and China. The new species differs from the phenotypically closely-related Ainsliaea foliosa Handel-Mazzetti in the morphology of the leaf veins and phyllaries, those having a protruding abaxial reticulate pattern in the lower and median part of stem with white hairs and narrow inner phyllaries. A key to the three closed Ainsliaea species occurring in China is provided.

Youngia japonica, a weed species distributed worldwide, has been widely used in traditional Chinese medicine. It is an ideal plant for studying the evolution of Asteraceae plants because of its short life history and abundant source. However, little is known about its evolution and genetic diversity. In this study, de novo transcriptome sequencing was conducted for the first time for the comprehensive analysis of the genetic diversity of Y. japonica. The Y. japonica transcriptome was sequenced using Illumina paired-end sequencing technology. We produced 21,847,909 high-quality reads for Y. japonica and assembled them into contigs. A total of 51,850 unigenes were identified, among which 46,087 were annotated in the NCBI non-redundant protein database and 41,752 were annotated in the Swiss-Prot database. We mapped 9,125 unigenes onto 163 pathways using the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes Pathway database. In addition, 3,648 simple sequence repeats (SSRs) were detected. Our data provide the most comprehensive transcriptome resource currently available for Y. japonica. C₄ photosynthesis unigenes were found in the biological process of Y. japonica. There were 5596 unigenes related to defense response and 1344 ungienes related to signal transduction mechanisms (10.95%). These data provide insights into the genetic diversity of Y. japonica. Numerous SSRs contributed to the development of novel markers. These data may serve as a new valuable resource for genomic studies on Youngia and, more generally, Cichoraceae.