This paper presents pollen morphology of 12 native Brazilian species of Rutaceae from forest fragments of São Paulo, Brazil. The aim of this research is to expand the morphological knowledge of the species, thus contributing to taxonomic knowledge and, subsequently, conservation of species and the forest area. The pollen grains were acetolyzed, measured, described qualitatively, and illustrated using light microscopy (LM) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The studied species have differences in polarity, size, shape, aperture and exine ornamentation of the pollen grains, confirming the eurypalynous character of Rutaceae pollen. In particular, species of Zanthoxylum L. also presented significant differences in the pollen grains, confirming the morphological variation within the genus. The quantitative data and multivariate analysis confirm the morphological description; thus, the results reinforce the importance of pollen morphology in the identification and characterization of species of Rutaceae.
A new species, Conchocarpus hendrixii (tribe Galipeinae, Rutaceae), is described and illustrated. To date, this new species is known from populations observed in the municipalities of Cardoso Moreira and São Fidélis in Serra da Bandeira/Serra da Vista mountain ranges in northern Rio de Janeiro state in the Atlantic Rainforest biome and was brought to light as an undescribed species thanks to photographs shared on the social media site Facebook. The epithet “hendrixii” is in honor of Jimi Hendrix, guitarist and singer-songwriter, who wrote the song “Purple Haze,” in reference to the purple color of the flowers of the new species. Analyzes showed that flowers of the new species bear a staminal tube, a characteristic present only in C. odoratissimus among the Conchocarpus. However, this species bears flowers with much shorter staminal tubes (c. 2–2.5 mm in length v. 1–1.2 cm in the new species) and smaller flowers, among other morphologically dissimilar characteristics. Molecular phylogenetic analysis using nuclear (ITS-1 and IT-2) and plastidial markers (trnL-trnF and rps16 intron) were conducted and demonstrated that the new species belongs to an internal clade in Conchocarpus, together with species formerly assigned to Almeidea (currently included in Conchocarpus). The presence of pantoporate pollen grains, a synapomorphic trait to this clade supports the molecular results. Conservation status as well as data from foliar and floral (with an emphasis on the staminal tube) anatomy are presented.
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