Messerschmid & al. • Phylogeny of Sedum and Sempervivoideae TAXON 69 (5) • October 2020: 892–926 SYSTEMATICS AND PHYLOGENY Linnaeus’s folly – phylogeny, evolution and classification of Sedum (Crassulaceae) and Crassulaceae subfamily Sempervivoideae Thibaud F.E. Messerschmid,1,2 Johannes T. Klein,3 Gudrun Kadereit2 & Joachim W. Kadereit1 1 Institut für Organismische und Molekulare Evolutionsbiologie, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany 2 Institut für Molekulare Physiologie, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany 3 Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, Gothenburg, Sweden Address for correspondence: Thibaud Messerschmid,
[email protected] DOI https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.12316 Abstract Sedum, containing approximately 470 species, is by far the largest genus of Crassulaceae. Three decades of molecular phy- logenetic work have provided evidence for the non-monophyly of Sedum and many more of the 30 genera of Crassulaceae subfam. Sempervivoideae. In this study, we present a broadly sampled and dated molecular phylogeny of Sempervivoideae including 80% of all infrageneric taxa described in Sedum as well as most other genera of the subfamily. We used sequences of one nuclear (ITS) and three plastid markers (matK, rps16, trnL-trnF). The five major lineages of Sempervivoideae (i.e., Telephium clade, Petrosedum clade, Sempervivum/Jovibarba, Aeonium clade, Leucosedum plus Acre clades) were resolved as successive sister to each other in the phylo- genetic analysis of the plastid markers, while in the ITS phylogeny the Petrosedum clade is the closest relative of the Aeonium clade. Our dating analysis of ITS suggests that Sempervivoideae diversified rapidly throughout the Paleocene and Eocene, possibly in the area of the former Tethys and Paratethys archipelago.