The genus Allium comprises about 700 species. Several of them are important vegetables, spices and medicinal plants. The most important crop species are onion and shallot, Allium cepa L., garlic, Allium sativum L., leek, Allium ampeloprasum L. s.l., bunching onion, A. fistulosum L., chives, A. schoenoprasum L., Chinese chives, A. tuberosum Rottl. ex Spr., and rakkyo, A. chinense G. Don. Many ot...

Allium L. (Alliaceae), a genus of major economic importance, exhibits a great diversity in various morphological characters and particularly in life form, with bulbs and rhizomes. Allium species show variation in several cytogenetic characters such as basic chromosome number, ploidy level, and genome size. The purpose of the present investigation was to study the evolution of nuclear DNA amount...

Nuclear ribosomal DNA (ITS and ETS) sequences from 39 native Californian (USA) Allium species and congeners were combined with 154 ITS sequences available on GenBank to develop a global Allium phylogeny with the simultaneous goals of investigating the evolutionary history (monophyly) of Allium in the Californian center of diversity and exploring patterns of adaptation to serpentine soils. Phylo...

A primary aim of historical biogeography is to identify the causal factors or processes that have shaped the composition and distribution of biotas over time. Another is to infer the evolution of geographic ranges of species and clades in a phylogenetic context. To this end, historical biogeography addresses important questions such as: Where were ancestors distributed? Where did lineages origi...