Data for: Phylogenomics of Aralia sect. Aralia (Araliaceae)

<p><span>Genome-scale data have significantly increased the number of informative characters for phylogenetic analyses and recent studies have also revealed widespread phylogenomic discordance in many plant lineages. <em>Aralia</em> sect. <em>Aralia</em> is a small plant lineage (14 spp.) of the ginseng family Araliaceae with a disjunct distribution between eastern Asia (11 spp.) and North America (3 spp.). We herein employ sequences of hundreds of nuclear loci and the complete plastomes using targeted sequence capture and genome skimming to reconstruct the phylogenetic and biogeographic history of this section. We detected substantial </span><span>conflicts among nuclear genes, yet </span><span>different analytical strategies generated largely congruent topologies from the nuclear data. Significant cytonuclear discordance was detected, especially concerning the positions of the three North American species. The phylogenomic results support two intercontinental disjunctions: (1) <em>Aralia</em> <em>californica</em> of western North America is sister to the eastern Asian clade consisting of <em>A</em>. <em>cordata</em> and <em>A</em>. <em>continentalis</em> in the nuclear tree, and (2) the eastern North American <em>A</em>. <em>racemosa</em> forms a clade with <em>A</em>. <em>bicrenata</em> from southwestern North America, and the North American <em>A</em>. <em>racemosa</em> - <em>A</em>. <em>bicrenata</em> clade is then sister </span><span>to </span><span>the eastern Asian clade consisting of <em>A</em>. <em>glabra</em> (Japan), <em>A</em>. <em>fargesii</em> (C China), and <em>A</em>. <em>apioides</em> and <em>A</em>. <em>atropurpurea</em> (the Hengduan Mountains). <em>Aralia</em> <em>cordata</em> is supported to be disjunctly distributed in Japan, Taiwan, the Ulleung island of Korea, and in Central, Southwest and South China, and <em>Aralia</em> <em>continentalis</em> is redefined with a narrower distribution in N</span><span>or</span><span>theast China, eastern Russia and peninsular Korea. </span></p>