In this paper, we investigate the problem of consensus tracking of a desired trajectory for a class of nonlinear systems consisting of multiple nonlinear subsystems with intrinsic mismatched unknown parameters. The subsystems are allowed to have non-identical dynamics with similar structures and the same yet arbitrary system order. Suppose that the communications among the subsystems can be represented by a directed graph. A fully distributed adaptive control approach based on a backstepping technique that is different from most of the existing results is proposed, which does not use global information as a parameter of the topology. It is proved that boundedness of all closed-loop signals and asymptotic consensus tracking for all the subsystems’ outputs are ensured. In simulation studies, a numerical example is illustrated to show the effectiveness of the control scheme. Moreover, the design strategy is successfully applied to solve a formation control problem for multiple underactuated ships.