Complete chloroplast genome of Helicia nilagirica Bedd. and its phylogenetic analysis

Helicia nilagirica Bedd. is a medicinal plant. Its fruit is the main raw material from which helicid, a compound that has sedative, hypnotic, analgesic, and other central nervous system inhibitory effects, is extracted. Here, we report and characterize the complete chloroplast genome of H. nilagirica in this study. The complete chloroplast genome of H. nilagirica contains 157,217 bp and consists of four regions, including a large single-copy region (LSC, 85,516 bp), two inverted repeat regions (IRs, 26,700 bp), and a small single copy (SSC, 18,301 bp) region. A total of 132 genes were obtained by annotation, including 88 protein-coding genes, 36 transfer RNA (tRNA) genes, and 8 ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes. Phylogenetic analysis showed that H. nilagirica is closely related to Macadamia integrifolia, suggesting that H. nilagirica may be used as rootstock or gene donor in macadamia breeding. This study lays a foundation for future phylogenetic and evolutionary studies of Proteaceae.