Abstract:
As two original plants of Tibetan herb Jieji,
Gentiana waltonii Burk. and
Gentiana lhassica Burk. belong to Section
Cruciata of
Gentiana, Gentianaceae. Here, we report on whole chloroplast genome sequences in the alpine species, respectively, and the features of plastomes were investigated. The plastome of
G. waltonii is 148 705 bp long (148 652 bp in
G. lhassica) and encodes 112 genes, including 78 protein-coding genes, 30 transfer RNA genes, and 4 ribosomal RNA genes. Two pseudogenes, namely
ψrps16 and
ψinfA, were found in plastomes. In addition, two novel loci were detected, and a species-specific polymerase chain reaction assay was developed for differentiating
G. waltonii and
G. lhassica from 10 alpine species in Section
Cruciata.
Gentiana. Our study provides basic data for identifying Tibetan herbs, alpine species conservation and molecular phylogenetic studies of
Gentiana and Gentianaceae.