*Correspondence should be addressed to Claire Chewapreecha (cchewapreecha@gmail.com) and Sharon Peacock (sharon.peacock@lshtm.ac.uk). § Deceased.

BackgroundFruits of persimmon plants are traditional healthy food in China, Korea and Japan. However, due to the shortage of morphological and DNA markers, the development of persimmon industry has been heavily inhibited.ResultsChloroplast genomes of Diospyros cathayensis, D. virginiana, D. rhombifolia and D. deyangensis were newly sequenced. Comparative analyses of ten chloroplast genomes including six previously published chloroplast genomes of Diospyros provided new insights into the genome sequence diversity and genomic resources of the genus. Eight hyper-variable regions, trnH-psbA, rps16-trnQ, rpoB-trnC, rps4-trnT-trnL, ndhF, ndhF-rpl32-trnL, ycf1a, and ycf1b, were discovered and can be used as chloroplast DNA markers at/above species levels. The complete chloroplast genome sequences provided the best resolution at inter-specific level in comparison with different chloroplast DNA sequence datasets.ConclusionDiospyros oleifera, D. deyangensis, D. virginiana, D. glaucifolia, D. lotus and D. jinzaoshi are important wild species closely related to the cultivated persimmon D. kaki. The hyper-variable regions can be used as DNA markers for global genetic diversity detection of Diospyros. Deeper study on these taxa would be helpful for elucidating the origin of D. kaki.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12870-018-1421-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

On the basis of morphological examination, field investigation, observation of cultivated accessions and statistical analysis, the genus Miscanthus s.l. (Poaceae) from China was taxonomically revised. Two subgenera (Miscanthus subgenus Miscanthus and Miscanthus subgenus Diandranthus), two sections [Miscanthus subgenus Miscanthus section Miscanthus and Miscanthus subgenus Miscanthus section Triarrhena (Maximowicz) Honda], six species, two subspecies and four varieties in this genus were recognized in this report. Miscanthus sacchariflorus ssp. lutarioriparius and Miscanthus nudipes var. yunnanensis were also recognized.A key to the taxa of Miscanthus from China is provided. A morphological description, distribution, and habit and phenology are summarized for each species. Distribution maps and morphological illustrations of each species are also provided.