ABSTRACT
Launaea taraxacifolia (Willd.) Amin Ex C. Jeffrey (Asteraceae) popularly known as "African wild lettuce" is a neglected, underutilized, and sometimes classified as a weed in West and Central Africa. The plant has been naturalized in numerous regions of the world, including Asia, North America, Europe, and North Africa. This highly nutritional and medicinal leafy vegetable is endemic to some states in southwest, Nigeria. People who utilize the species still depend largely on its spontaneous appearance in the wild, except for some herbalists who cultivate it for therapeutic uses. Its domestication and cultivation are still at infant stage. Without the intervention of breeders, the full potential of this species would remain untapped. The inadequate information about the genetic diversity of L. taraxacifolia hinders its improvement through breeding programme and for conservation purposes, hence this dataset. A total of fifteen (15) accessions of L. taraxacifolia were collected from Oyo, Osun and Ogun states in Nigeria. The accessions were partitioned into three populations according to their collection states and subjected to DNA extraction, polymerase chain reaction amplification and Sanger sequencing using ribulose-1,5-carboxylase/oxygenase large subunit gene (rbcL). The dataset composed of partial rbcL gene sequences which provides information on L. taraxacifolia distribution in southwest, Nigeria, its genetic diversity, single nucleotide polymorphic information, codon usage bias and amino acids molecular weight profile. The dataset recorded a relatively low number of segregating sites (3), total number of haplotypes (4), and nucleotide diversity (0.298) with a high gene diversity (0.667) and average number of nucleotide differences (0.895). A significant low level of genetic differentiation (Fst) was recorded for the population in the decreasing order of 0.103 (Ogun and Oyo populations), 0.000 (Ogun and Osun populations) and -0.222 (Oyo and Osun populations). The unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean revealed the genetic diversity and phylogenetic relationships of L. taraxacifolia accessions which could be explored for its domestication, cultivation, genetic improvement and conservation in Nigeria.
