A first record of Loricalepis (Melastomataceae) from the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, with the description of a new specie
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AND
ANDRÉ M. AMORIM3,4
1
Departamento de Botânica, Centro Politécnico, Universidade Federal do Paraná, 81531-970, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil; e-mail: [email protected] 2 The New York Botanical Garden, Institute of Systematic Botany, Bronx, NY 10458-5126, USA 3 Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz, Rodovia Ilhéus-Itabuna, 45, Ilhéus, Bahia 662-900, Brazil 4 Herbário Centro de Pesquisas do Cacau, CEPEC, Rodovia Ilhéus-Itabuna, 45, Ilhéus, Bahia 650-970, Brazil
Abstract. Loricalepis has been known from only three collections from the upper Rio Negro, in Amazonas, Brazil, and the Río Guainía basin, in Colombia, all belonging to a single species, L. duckei. Its capsular fruits and cochleate, tuberculate seeds suggest its relation to pantropical “core Melastomeae”, but it does not have a particularly close morphological connection with any other genus of the tribe. Here we describe and illustrate a second species in the genus, Loricalepis atlantica, recently collected in white sand vegetation near the coast of Bahia. Although we have not been able to sequence DNA from the new species, we place it in Loricalepis due to a long list of characters that it shares with L. duckei. Both are shrubs or small trees with scalariform indumentum on the stems and leaves; thick-cartilaginous, crenulate-serrulate and paleaceous-ciliate leaf margins; persistent acute and seta-tipped sepals; glandulose-ciliate petal margins; glabrous and subisomorphic stamens, these with the connective not at all or only shortly prolonged and ventrally bilobed; and the ovary apex with a crown of scales surrounding the style. lightface differs from L. duckei by 5-merous flowers (vs. 4-merous in L. duckei), the hypanthium covered with minute scalariform trichomes (vs. glabrous), light-pink petals (vs. white), purple anthers (vs. white), and 5-celled ovary (vs. 4celled). The new species is known from only one locality, in an extremely endangered vegetation type. Its discovery highlights the need for sustained floristic studies of forest remnants in northeastern Brazil. Keywords: Amazonas, Bahia, disjunction, Loricalepis duckei, mussununga, Rio Negro, taxonomy.
Loricalepis Brade has been up until now a monotypic genus in Melastomataceae (Melastomateae) known only from white sand vegetation along the upper Rio Negro basin, in the state of Amazonas, Brazil (Brade 1938; Goldenberg and Michelangeli 2019a), and in the nearby Río Guainía basin, in the department of Guainía, Colombia. It has been collected only three times: twice in Brazil, the type in 1936 (Ducke 35,068, US, RB) and a recent collection quite near the type locality in 2009 (Hopkins 1904, INPA, UPCB), and only once in Colombia, in 2006 (Cárdenas 20,309, NY), always on white sand vegetation. These last collections brought some light to this otherwise elusive genus,
including photos and silica-dried leaf samples. Several morphological characters, such as the ovary crowned with a few setae, and the capsular fruits with cochleate, tuberculate seeds, sugges
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