The Rubiaceae (coffee family) belong to the Gentianales, in the eudicot family. It is the fourth most species-rich and diverse family of flowering plants, comprising some 13,600 species grouped in around 620 genera and some 60 tribes. Rubiaceae are mainly tropical trees and shrubs, and more rarely annual or perennial grasses. They occupy a wide range of ecological niches, from deserts to evergreen rainforests, and from sea level to high altitudes (over 4,000 m). While some herbaceous species have reached temperate regions, Rubiaceae are particularly abundant (in terms of species diversity and biomass) in lowland rainforests, where they are often the most species-abundant of the woody plant families. The Rubiaceae are divided into two subfamilies, the Rubioideae and the Cinchonoideae, while Bremer and Eriksson recognized three subfamilies, dividing the Cinchonoideae into the Ixoroidae and Cinchonoideae. The pantropical subfamily Ixoroideae comprises around 4,000 species, divided into 27 tribes, and several well-known genera, namely the economically important Coffea and the horticulturally important Gardenia and Ixora, as well as other less economically important genera such as Vangueria, Alibertia and Duroia L.f.

Our aim is to study the phylogenetic relationships between the genera of the subfamily Ixoroideae and to investigate genome evolution using next-generation sequencing data, in collaboration with the Botanical Garden of Meise.