Abstract
In conifers, plastid DNA is inherited through the male lineage via the pollen grain. By contrast, mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited in the well-studied Pinaceae, but is often paternally inherited in other conifer families. This paper examines the mode of inheritance of plastids and mitochondria in the rare Tasmanian podocarp Lagarostrobos franklinii. It is the first molecular genetic study of organelle inheritance in the Podocarpaceae family. Two intraspecific crosses were established with the same iconic father, which was cloned from a tree from a uniform clonal stand, estimated to be 11,000 years old. Genome skimming and subsequent bioinformatic analysis identified polymorphic positions in the parental genomes of one cross. Our Illumina reads were aligned to a published plastome and to newly assembled DNA contigs that represent the partial mitogenome of the father. We used PCR-based markers derived from these polymorphisms to genotype parents and offspring of both crosses. Both plastid DNA and mitochondrial DNA were paternally inherited in all five offspring examined . This study provides new insights into patterns of organelle inheritance in conifers and the evolution of this trait.