XVI International Botanical Congess

Scrophulariaceae has long been a challenging family to classify because of a high degree of morphological diversity within lineages. Challenges to the classification of Scrophulariaceae have resulted in numerous transfers of genera in and out of the family and changing alliances within lineages. Nucleotide sequence data from three plastid genes (rbcL, ndhF, rps2) reveals at least four distinct lineages, some of which may merit recognition at the family level. For example, the parasitic genera of Lamiales form a well-supported monophyletic clade and two other major clades of genera traditionally assigned to Scrophulariaceae may represent distinct families. To assess the phylogeny reconstruction based on plastid sequence date, an independent phylogenetic analysis was conducted on nuclear rDNA ITS sequence data. The major result consistent between these analyses is the monophyletic parasite clade. However, topological differences were observed among the nonparasitic lineages with most of the genera of Scrophulariaceae s.1. forming a monophyletic lineage.