Annals of Botany 109: 1341–1357, 2012 doi:10.1093/aob/mcs054, available online at www.aob.oxfordjournals.org Phylogenetic relationships and generic delimitation of Eurasian Aster (Asteraceae: Astereae) inferred from ITS, ETS and trnL-F sequence data Wei-Ping Li1,*, Fu-Sheng Yang2, Todorka Jivkova3 and Gen-Shen Yin4 1College of Life Sciences, Hunan Normal University, Changsha 410081, China, 2State Key Laboratory of Systematic and Evolutionary Botany, Institute of Botany, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China, 3Department of Structural Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Shumen University, Shumen 9700, Bulgaria and 4Key Laboratory of Biodiversity and Biogeography, Kunming Institute of Botany, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming 650204, China * For correspondence. E-mail
[email protected] Downloaded from Received: 18 September 2011 Returned for revision: 7 November 2011 Accepted: 13 February 2012 Published electronically: 19 April 2012 † Background and Aims The classification and phylogeny of Eurasian (EA) Aster (Asterinae, Astereae, Asteraceae) remain poorly resolved. Some taxonomists adopt a broad definition of EA Aster, whereas others favour a narrow generic concept. The present study aims to delimit EA Aster sensu stricto (s.s.), elucidate the phylogenetic relationships of EA Aster s.s. and segregate genera. http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/ † Methods The internal and external transcribed spacers of nuclear ribosomal DNA and the plastid DNA trnL-F region were used to reconstruct the phylogeny of EA Aster through maximum parsimony and Bayesian analyses. † Key Results The analyses strongly support an Aster clade including the genera Sheareria, Rhynchospermum, Kalimeris (excluding Kalimeris longipetiolata), Heteropappus, Miyamayomena, Turczaninowia, Rhinactinidia, eastern Asian Doellingeria, Asterothamnus and Arctogeron.