Yu Gyeom Kim1,2P, Hee-Young Gil2, Joo-Hwan Kim1

1Department of Life Science, Gachon University, 1342 Seongnamdaero, Seongnam-si, 13120, Korea

2Division of Forest Biodiversity, Korea National Arboretum, Pocheon, Korea

The genus Erythronium L. (Liliaceae) comprises approximately 30 species of spring-flowering perennial herbs distributed across Northern Hemisphere temperate regions. Characterized by elegant flowers with six recurved tepals and starch-rich bulbs historically utilized in East Asia, the genus faces taxonomic challenges due to limited diagnostic morphological variation. This study presents a phylogenomic and historical biogeographic analysis using ten newly sequenced plastid genomes via the Illumina MiSeq platform. Assembled plastomes (150,647–151,827 bp) exhibited a typical quadripartite structure, with the infA gene consistently pseudogenized. Phylogenomic analysis based on 78 protein-coding sequences from 48 taxa resolved Erythronium into three well-supported, geographically disjunct clades: Eurasia, Eastern North America, and Western North America, with Amana confirmed as the sister lineage. Molecular dating estimated the crown age at 16.7 Mya, and major clade divergences initiated during the Late Miocene, yielding Eurasian (8.71 Mya), Eastern North American (5.80 Mya), and Western North American (3.35 Mya) lineages. East Asia was identified as the likely biogeographic origin. The disjunct distribution is hypothesized to have potentially resulted from Miocene dispersal via the Bering land bridge, global cooling, and geographic isolation by the Rocky Mountains. These findings suggest that Erythronium represents a useful model for understanding the evolutionary and biogeographic histories of temperate-adapted monocots.

* This research was supported by a grant of the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), funded by (NRF-2017R1D1A1BO6029326).

* This research was funded by Scientific Research Grants (KNA 1-1-34-26-2) of the Korea National Arboretum.