Five new species of Ruellia (Acanthaceae) from the Atlantic Forest of northeastern Brazil

Abstract

Five new species of Ruellia from the Atlantic Forest of northeastern Brazil are described: Ruellia curupira, R. fulozinha, R. insurrecta, R. jiboia, and R. taboleirana. Ruellia curupira (from the States of Alagoas and Bahia), R. fulozinha (Alagoas and Pernambuco), R. insurrecta (Alagoas), and R. jiboia (Alagoas and Bahia) occur exclusively in forested areas, whereas R. taboleirana is restricted to “Tabuleiros litorâneos” (Tabuleiro savanna) vegetation from Rio Grande do Norte to Alagoas. Due to the restricted distribution, resulting from high fragmented areas and the imminent threats, the five new species here proposed are provisionally considered under some degree of threat in accordance with the IUCN criteria. We provide morphological descriptions, comments on morphological affinities, data on habitat and distribution, as well as illustrations and photographs of living plants.

An overview of the Brazilian inselberg genus Ameroglossum (Linderniaceae, Lamiales), with the description of seven new species

“…This level of hidden diversity is not unique to Ameroglossum, because a similar unexpected diversity has been found in a number of plant and animal groups in north-eastern Brazil (e.g., Plowman 1986;Gonçalves-Oliveira et al 2017;Mângia et al 2018;Chagas & da Costa-Lima 2020;Pinagé et al 2020, etc. ).…”

Phylogeny and revised classification of New World Ruellia

“…275 species, as follows: 243 species recognized in Ulloa Ulloa & al. (2018–) plus approximately 12 other species recently described (Chagas & da Costa‐Lima, 2020) or currently being described by the present authors (Manzitto‐Tripp & Daniel, in prep. ), plus an additional 5%–10% of this number (255) we estimate to be currently undiscovered in the NW, yielding a total of ca.…”