Morpho-anatomical novelties of a dwarf Syagrus (Arecaceae) of canga: implications for ecology, conservation, and taxonomy

A New Rupicolous Palm From the Campos Rupestres, Minas Gerais, Brazil

“…The present study is based on field observations and collections in the Serra do Cabral State Park, Minas Gerais, Brazil, and herbarium material from MCMG, SPF and UPCB (herbarium codes follow Thiers et al, continuously updated). In the literature review, all available publications on the taxonomy of the genus were considered (Glassman, 1965(Glassman, , 1967(Glassman, , 1968a(Glassman, , 1968b(Glassman, , 1987Henderson et al, 1995;Marcato & Pirani, 2001;Noblick, 2004aNoblick, , 2004bNoblick, , 2004cMarcato & Pirani, 2006;Dransfield et al, 2008;Meerow et al, 2009;Noblick, 2009Noblick, , 2010Noblick & Lorenzi, 2010a, 2010bNoblick, 2012;Martel et al, 2013;Noblick, 2013a;Soares et al, 2013;Noblick, 2014;Noblick et al, 2014;Noblick, 2017a;Silva-Cardoso et al, 2017;Noblick, 2018Noblick, , 2019Soares & Guimarães, 2019;Firmo et al, 2021;Soares, 2022;Sant'Anna-Santos et al, 2023a, 2023b. The circumscription adopted here for Syagrus is based on Noblick (2017a), and the terminology adopted for the morphological and anatomical descriptions follows Dransfield et al (2008) and Noblick (2017aNoblick ( , 2017b.…”

“…Syagrus duartei is endemic to Serra do Cipó, whereas S. glaucescens is more abundant in the region of Diamantina, although some latter specimens could be found near the distribution limits of S. duartei (Noblick, 2017a). Syagrus evansiana occurs further north than S. duartei and S. glaucescens (Noblick, 2017a), whereas S. aristeae is endemic to the Serra do Cabral, a massif that shows a remarkable degree of endemism and holds rare species from several botanical families, including recent newly described species in Arecaceae (Noblick et al, 2014;Costa et al, 2018;Firmo et al, 2021;Sant'Anna-Santos et al, 2023a, 2023b.…”

“…The monophyletic genus Syagrus comprises 70 species, mostly native to Brazil, with 33 being acaulescent (lacking a visible stem or short-stemmed) species (Dransfield et al, 2008;Meerow et al, 2009;Noblick et al, 2014;Noblick & Meerow, 2015;Noblick, 2017aNoblick, , 2018Soares & Guimarães, 2019;Firmo et al, 2021;Soares, 2022;Sant'Anna-Santos et al, 2023a, 2023b. More than half of the acaulescent Syagrus species bear similar unbranched inflorescences, flowers and fruits (Dransfield et al, 2008;Noblick, 2013bNoblick, , 2017a.…”

“…More than half of the acaulescent Syagrus species bear similar unbranched inflorescences, flowers and fruits (Dransfield et al, 2008;Noblick, 2013bNoblick, , 2017a. However, due to the great morphological similarity, some acaulescent species still have uncertain circumscriptions, with some probably representing complexes of several closely related species (Noblick, 2017a;Sant'Anna-Santos et al, 2023a). Furthermore, the high rates of speciation coupled with the lack of field collections in several areas in Brazil (Cássia-Silva et al, 2022;Reflora, 2022;SpeciesLink Network, 2022) make it quite plausible that there are many species yet to be described as new to science.…”

“…In Brazil, campos rupestres are mainly found along the Espinhaço Range in Bahia and Minas Gerais (Giulietti et al, 1997). Although it constitutes a megadiverse environment with high endemism, the campos rupestres have been under severe and diverse socioeconomic exploitation, causing great concern about the extinction of rare or as-yet-unknown species (Giulietti et al, 1988;Alves et al, 2014;Fernandes, 2016;Batista et al, 2018;Costa et al, 2018;Fernandes et al, 2020;Sant'Anna-Santos et al, 2023a, 2023b. Among acaulescent Syagrus species, the S. glaucescens complex, which occurs exclusively in the Minas Gerais portion of the Espinhaço Range, includes S. glaucescens Glaz.…”