This variation among the four closely related lineages of dogwoods provides a very useful system to study inflorescence evolution and the underlying molecular mechanisms. nuttallii Audubon and (4) the dwarf dogwoods, rhizomatous herbs with small, condensed, dichasia subtended by four large, petaloid, involucral bracts, e.g., C. officinalis (3) the big-bracted dogwoods with head-like inflorescences subtended by four or six large, petaloid, involucral bracts, e.g., C. (2) the cornelian cherries with umbel-like inflorescences that are subtended by four non-petaloid involucral bracts (bracts at the base of inflorescences), e.g., C. For example, phylogenetic studies using molecular data have shown that the modern dogwood species represent descendants of four closely related evolutionary lineages that have diverged in inflorescence morphology: (1) the blue- or white-fruited dogwoods bearing large, elongated inflorescences with rudimentary bracts on the inflorescence branches, e.g., C. A number of studies on the taxonomy, phylogeny, biogeography, and morphological evolution of this genus have been recently conducted to better understand the biodiversity and evolutionary history of this economically important group, –. One striking feature of the dogwood genus is the considerable variation in morphology of inflorescences, bracts, and fruits among species, –. Dogwoods are widely distributed in the north temperate regions extending to the tropical and subtropical areas of Asia, America, and Africa, with several species isolated in small areas of these continents. is also highly valued in Chinese medicine and cultivated as a crop in China. stolonifera Michx.), and the bunchberry C. A short list of the well-known examples includes the flowering dogwood C. Many dogwood species are valued in horticulture because of their spectacular blooms in the spring and brightly colored fruits, leaves, or stems in the fall or winter. It consists of approximately 55 species that are mostly evergreen or deciduous trees or shrubs, and rarely rhizomatous herbs –. The dogwood genus ( Cornus L.) belongs to the eudicot family Cornaceae in the order Cornales of the Asterids clade. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Ĭompeting interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. This study was also benefited from a National Nature Science Foundation of China (grant no. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.įunding: This work was supported by a grant from National Nature Science Foundation of the United States grant (IOS-1024629) and a CAS/SAFEA International Partnership Program for Creative Research Teams from China. Received: AugAccepted: OctoPublished: December 27, 2013Ĭopyright: © 2013 Zhang et al.

PLoS ONE 8(12):Įditor: Ting Wang, Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, China (2013) De novo Sequencing, Characterization, and Comparison of Inflorescence Transcriptomes of Cornus canadensis and C. The twenty unigenes with the most SNPs are listed as potential genetic markers for evolutionary studies.Ĭitation: Zhang J, Franks RG, Liu X, Kang M, Keebler JEM, Schaff JE, et al. Comparisons of the shared sequences by ccBud and cfBud yielded 65931 high quality SNPs between two species. Bi-directional BLAST found 87 (41.83% of 208) of Arabidopsis genes related to inflorescence development had putative orthologs in the dogwood transcriptomes. Putative differentially expressed genes between ccBud and cfBud that are related to flower development and/or stress response were identified among 7718 shared sequences by ccBud and cfBud. Reference mapping and comparative analyses found 10926 sequences were putatively specific to ccBud, and 6979 putatively specific to cfBud. canadensis was built by assembling HQ reads of ccBud and ccLeaf, containing 40884 unigenes. The de novo assembly of the high quality (HQ) reads resulted in 36088, 1780 unigenes for ccBud, ccLeaf and cfBud. canadensis resulted in 251799 (ccBud), 96245 (ccLeaf) and 114648 (cfBud) raw reads, respectively. florida (cf), and normalized cDNAs from leaves of C. The sequencing of cDNAs from inflorescence buds of C.

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