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Acrostichum genus is the only mangrove fern that distribute in the intertidal zones of tropical and subtropical regions. A. speciosum is one rare species occurring in only few locations in Hainan and Guangdong, China. To study the evolutionary history of fern will improve our understanding of the origin of vascular plants. Here, we provide the complete chloroplast genome of A. speciosum, which is 156,095 bp in length with a GC content of 38.45%. A pair of identical inverted repeat regions (IRs) of 24,938 bp separate a large single copy (LSC) region of 84,476 and a small single copy (SSC) region of 21,744 bp. A total of 112 genes were annotated, including 72 protein-coding genes, 32 tRNA genes, and 8 rRNA genes. Phylogenetic analysis based on 30 ferns showed that A. speciosum and Ceratopteris richardii, both are aquatic plants, formed an original base clade in Pteridaceae. Our work reports the complete chloroplast genome of mangrove fern A. speciosum, which will help to improve understanding of the evolutionary history of ferns. ARTICLE HISTORY

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