Abstract
The genus
Mentha
encompasses mint species cultivated for their essential oils, which are formulated into a vast array of consumer products. However, the systematics of the genus
Mentha
is very complicated and still uncertain. This is largely because of the presence of frequent interspecific hybridization, variation in chromosome number, cytomixis, polymorphism in morphology and essential oil composition under different environmental conditions, colonial mutant propagation, as well as the occurrence of polyploidy, aneuploidy, and nothomorphs. Here, we present the plastome assemblies for a wilt-resistant Saudi Arabian accession of
Mentha longifolia
(L.) Huds and an alien hybrid
Mentha
×
verticillata
L. which are 152,078 bp and 152,026 bp in length, respectively, and exhibited large single-copy (LSC) and small single-copy (SSC) regions separated by a pair of inverted repeat regions. The chloroplast genome of
M. longifolia
has 133 annotated genes, including 88 protein-coding genes and 37 tRNAs while
M
. ×
verticillata
has 133 annotated genes, including 87 protein-coding genes and 38 tRNAs. Both cp genomes have eight rRNA genes. Phylogenetic analysis using a total chloroplast genome DNA sequence of 17 species revealed that
M. longifolia
sequenced in this study did not form a sister relationship with
M. longifolia
from another study. This opens a window for further investigations.