The complete chloroplast genome of <i>Hibiscus syriacus</i> using long-read sequencing: Comparative analysis to examine the evolution of the tribe Hibisceae

<i>Hibiscus syriacus</i>, a member of the tribe Hibisceae, is considered an important ornamental and medicinal plant in east Asian countries. Here, we sequenced and assembled the complete chloroplast genome of <i>H. syriacus</i> var. <i>Baekdansim</i> using the PacBio long-read sequencing platform. A quadripartite structure with 161,026 base pairs was obtained, consisting of a pair of inverted repeats (IRA and IRB) with 25,745 base pairs, separated by a large single-copy region of 89,705 base pairs and a short single-copy region of 19,831 base pairs. This chloroplast genome had 79 protein-coding genes, 30 transfer RNA genes, 4 ribosomal RNA genes, and 109 simple sequence repeat regions. Among them, <i>ndhD</i> and <i>rpoC1</i>, containing traces of RNA-editing events associated with adaptive evolution, were identified by analysis of putative RNA-editing sites. Codon usage analysis revealed a preference for A/U-terminated codons. Furthermore, the codon usage pattern had a clustering tendency similar to that of the phylogenetic analysis of the tribe Hibisceae. This study provides clues for understanding the relationships and refining the taxonomy of the tribe Hibisceae.