The Schisandraceae is one of the most important taxa for understanding the origin and evolution of primitive angiosperms due to its basal position in the recent cladograms of the angiosperm based both on several gene sequences and on morphological characters, but phylogenetic relationships within the family are still unresolved. The sequences of nrDNA ITS region of 15 species representing four sections of Schisandra Michx., two sections of Kadsura Kaempf. ex Juss. and one outgroup, Illicium fargesii Finet et Gagnep., were used to reconstruct the phylogeny of Schisandraceae. Fourteen most parsimonious trees (Length=259, CI=0.934 and RI=0.889) were obtained from the analysis with I. fargesii as the outgroup. In the consensus tree, the genus Schisandra was found to be divided into three clades. Sect. Pleiostema formed a clade together with sect. Maximowiczia, sect. Sphaerostema was weakly supported to be the sister group of a clade comprising S. bicolor var. tuberculata and Kadsura species. In particular, S. bicolor var. tuberculata, a species of sect. Schisandra, was nested within Kadsura. It seems from this result and the morphological characters that Schisandra might not be a monophyletic group. According to the present molecular phylogeny, both elongated hypocarpium and deciduous habit originated independently at least twice in the Schisandraceae, and therefore, the value of the present morphological characters used in the classification of the family Schisandraceae should be reevaluated.
