**5. Conclusions**

The development of plant genomics plays an important role in the effective use of modern molecular biology methods for the genetic improvement of species. After sequencing the transcriptome of drought-stressed Verbena materials by high-throughput sequencing and verifying the results by qRT-PCR, we finally identified DEGs and TFs related to stress resistance and analyzed their biomodulation mechanism, and this proved Verbena's commendable drought tolerance at physiological and molecular levels. These data will provide excellent genetic resources for improving the drought tolerance of crops and lay a good foundation for the follow-up study of Verbena.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following are available online at http://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/19/6/1751/s1.

**Author Contributions:** B.W., X.-Q.L., and Q.-L.L. conceived and designed the experiments. B.W., X.-Q.L., M.-S.X. and Q.-L.L. performed the experiments. B.W., F.-L.L., Q.Z., L.H., Q.-L.L., L.Z., Y.J. and F.Z. analyzed the data. Q.-L.L. contributed reagents/ materials/ analysis tools. B.W. wrote the paper.

**Funding:** This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China, grant number (31770742) and Innovative Training Program of Sichuan Agricultural Uniersity, grant number (201710626086).

**Acknowledgments:** This study was supported by Sichuan Agricultural University Ornamental Horticulture lab. We would like to acknowledge the contribution of Qing-Lin Liu for the provision of experimental materials and instruments.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
