Chromosome-level genome assembly of a Chinese evergreen sweetgum (Liquidambar gracilipes, Altingiaceae)

Liquidambar gracilipes, an evergreen species endemic to China and a member of the Altingiaceae family, is morphologically distinguished by its unlobed leaves and represents an ecologically and economically valuable resource. Prized for its ornamental beauty, valuable timber, and medicinal properties, this species is a key component of subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forests in East China. To improve our understanding of its evolutionary and functional genomics, we performed a de novo genome assembly of L. gracilipes by integrating PacBio HiFi long reads, Illumina short reads, and Hi-C data. A high-quality chromosome-level genome assembly was obtained with a genome size of approximately 715.54 Mb and contig N50 of 18.61 Mb, of which 96.87% was anchored to 16 pseudo-chromosomes with a scaffold N50 of 42.40 Mb. Genome annotation identified 24,809 protein-coding genes (97.02% functionally annotated) and revealed a repetitive sequence content of 59.72%. BUSCO analysis against the embryophyte dataset indicated a high level of completeness, with a score of 98.70%. The high-quality genome assembly of L. gracilipes provides a valuable genetic resource for molecular breeding of sweetgums and lays the foundation for future in-depth evolutionary and functional genomics studies of this species.