Jafari Farzaneh (Orcid ID: 0000-0001-9159-1800) Zarre Shahin (Orcid ID: 0000-0001-9159-1800) Rabeler Richard K. (Orcid ID: 0000-0002-6765-0353) [Article Category: SYSTEMATICS AND PHYLOGENY] [Running Header:] Jafari & al. • Infrageneric classification of Silene Article history: Received: 30 Jun 2019 | returned for (first) revision: 20 Sep 2019 | (last) revision received: 27 Jan 2020 | accepted: 21 Feb 2020 Associate Editor: M. Montserrat Martinez-Ortega | © 2020 International Association for Plant Taxonomy A new taxonomic backbone for the infrageneric classification of the species-rich genus Silene (Caryophyllaceae) Farzaneh Jafari, 1,5 Shahin Zarre, 1 Abbas Gholipour, 2 Frida Eggens, 3 Richard K. Rabeler 4 & Bengt Oxelman 5,6 1 Department of Plant Science, Centre of Excellence in Phylogeny of Living Organisms, School of Biology, College of Science, University of Tehran, P.O. Box 14155-6455, Tehran, Iran 2 Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Payame Noor University (PNU), P.O. Box 19395-3697, Tehran, Iran 3 Department of Systematic Botany, Evolutionary Biology Centre, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 18D, 752 36 Uppsala, Sweden 4 University of Michigan Herbarium-EEB, 3600 Varsity Drive, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48108-2228, U.S.A. 5 Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Gothenburg, P.O. Box 461, 40530 Göteborg, Sweden 6 Gothenburg Global Biodiversity Centre, University of Gothenburg, P.O. Box 461, 40530 Göteborg, Sweden Addresses for correspondence: Shahin Zarre, zarre@khayam.ut.ac.ir; Bengt Oxelman, bengt.oxelman@bioenv.gu.se Abstract The systematization of species in plant taxonomy based on the phylogenetic relationships among them are of utmost importance and also very challenging in large genera. In those, phylogenetic results often may suggest substantially different relationships than previous classifications, and call for large-scale taxonomic revisions. Delimitation of the genus Silene has been and is still somewhat controversial, and recent molecular phylogenetic studies have settled several monophyletic groups that differ substantially from previous taxonomies. The infrageneric taxonomy of Silene s.str. has not been updated as a whole taking the phylogenetic information into account. In this study, we review previous phylogenetic results based on multiple loci, and conducted comprehensive gene tree analyses based on the nrDNA ITS and cpDNA rps16 regions for 1586 and 944 samples representing 415 and 397 species, respectively, including Silene and its allies, as well as a This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved. This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi: 10.1002/tax.12230