The complete chloroplast genome of a rare species Heritiera parvifolia Merr. (Malvales: Sterculiaceae)

The precious and endangered tree, Heritiera parvifolia Merr., is an excellent landscape and ornamental species endemic to China, but its populations are now very fragmented and in decline. It is currently on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list of threatened species. In this study, we first assembled the complete chloroplast (cp) genome of H. parvifolia by Illumina paired-end reads data. The whole genome was 160,193 bp, consisting of a pair of inverted repeats of 19,964 bp, large single copy region and a small single copy region (89,053 and 18,838 bp in length, respectively). The cp genome contained 130 genes, including 85 protein-coding genes, 37 trRNA genes and 8 rRNA genes. The overall GC content of the whole genome was 37.1%. A neighbour-joining phylogenetic analysis demonstrated a close relationship between H. parvifolia and Tilia amurensis.