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Representative taxa of Euphorbiaceae subfam. Acalyphoideae, especially of tribe Adelieae, were sampled to investigate the phylogenetic relationships of the genus Adelia using morphological and molecular (chloroplast trnL-F IGS and rbcL, and nuclear ITS DNA sequences) characters. Parsimony and Bayesian analyses were conducted. A clade containing the three genera of tribe Adelieae (Lasiocroton, Leucocroton, Adelia) was recovered. Molecular and total evidence analyses confirmed the monophyly of the genus Adelia but no synapomorphic character states supporting the Adelia clade were recovered. Adelia cinerea did not form part of the Adelia clade in the morphological analysis but was included in Adelia based on total evidence. Three main clades were retrieved in the genus, the earliest formed by A. cinerea, a second by four Mexican species distributed in deciduous forest and desert scrub, and the third by the four remaining species distributed in tropical forest in Mexico, the Caribbean, Central and South America.