Calyptranthes carangola Sobral & Leoni, 2016

Sobral, Marcos, Mazine, Fiorella F., Leoni, Lúcio, Souza, Marcelo C. & Melo, Eugênio A. D., 2016, Five new southeastern Brazilian Myrtaceae, Phytotaxa 253 (1), pp. 57-70 : 60-63

3. Calyptranthes carangola Sobral & Leoni , sp. nov.

Type:— BRAZIL. Minas Gerais: mun. Carangola, Fazenda Santa Rita , 600 m, 20°46’ S, 42°02” W, 7 July 1990, L.S. Leoni 1156 (holotype GFJP!) . Figure 3 .

This species is apparently related to Calyptranthes curta , from which it is distinguished by its indumentum of mostly dibrachiate, strongly asymmetrical trichomes to 1 mm (versus a mixture of simple and dibrachiate trichomes mostly up to 0.4 mm in C. curta ), leaves with slender petioles to 10.5 × 1.2 mm (versus to 9 × 2.5 mm) and narrower blades to 107 × 46 mm (versus 110 × 63 mm), with more scattered glandular dots (up to 8/mm² vs. up to 30/mm²), and its longer inflorescences (up to 30 mm vs. up to 7 mm) with narrowly triangular bracts to 3 × 1 mm (vs. cordiform, to 3 × 4 mm). It may also resemble Calyptranthes pteropoda , from which it is kept apart mostly through the pilose twigs and blades (vs. glabrous in C. pteropoda ) and the terete or slightly applanate, markedly pilose inflorescence axis (versus glabrous and markedly winged inflorescence axis).

Shrub 1.2–2.5 m. Twigs brown, sometimes dichotomously branching, terete or slightly applanate with a moderately visible longitudinal furrow, when young densely covered with strongly asymmetrical dibrachiate trichomes to 1 mm; internodes 30–50 × 1–2 mm. Leaves with petioles 8–10.5 × 1–1.2 mm, adaxially sulcate, with scattered trichomes as the twigs and glabrescent with age; blades narrowly elliptic or sometimes slightly obovate, 82–107 × 30–46 mm, 2.3– 3.2 times longer than wide, discolorous when dry, adaxially dull brown and glabrous, abaxially light brown and with moderately scattered strongly asymmetrical dibrachiate trichomes 0.3–1 mm, these more dense along the midvein, mostly falling with age; glandular dots about 0.05 mm in diameter, 4 to 8/mm², visible abaxially; apex acuminate to 7–8 mm; base cuneate; midvein finely sulcate adaxially and strongly raised abaxially; lateral veins 13 to 18 at each side, leaving the midvein at angles of 70–80°, barely visible adaxially and moderately salient abaxially, the secondary lateral veins and higher level venation also visible abaxially; marginal vein 1.2–2.2 mm from the margin, the margin itself plane or moderately revolute, with a brownish thickening to 0.2 mm wide. Inflorescences axillary, the axis 5–7 × 1.2–1.5 mm, terete or slightly applanate, densely covered with asymmetrical dibrachiate trichomes to 0.5 mm, with up to three flowers at its apex; bracts narrowly triangular, 1.5–3 × 1 mm, pilose as the axis at least abaxially; flowers sessile; bracteoles apparently one per flower, triangular, to 0.8 × 0.3 mm, adaxially glabrous, abaxially with trichomes as the axis; flower buds elliptic, to 4 × 2.5 mm, apiculate to 0.3 mm, mostly densely and uniformly covered with grey asymmetrical dibrachiate trichomes to 0.5 mm, sometimes more densely so on the ovary; calyptra to 2 × 2 mm; petals two in the flowers examined, glabrous, white, spathulate, to 3 × 1 mm; stamens about 80, to 5 mm, the anthers globose, to 0.2 × 0.2 mm, with one apical gland; staminal ring to 2 mm in diameter, glabrous; calyx tube 1–1.5 mm deep, glabrous; style not seen, broken in the flowers examined; ovary bilocular, with two ovules per locule. Fruits immature, globose, to 8 mm in diameter, with the calyx tube persisting at its apex; seeds immature, not examined.

Distribution, habitat and phenology:—This species in presently known from three collections from the municipalities of Carangola and Faria Lemos, in the eastern part of Minas Gerais along the limits with the neighboring states of Espírito Santo and Rio de Janeiro, where it grows in humid forests at about 600 m elev.; flowers were collected in January and July, and fruits in March.

Conservation:—The neighboring municipalities of Carangola and Faria Lemos comprise an area of 518 km ² ( IBGE 2016b), and there are about 2,850 collections from there ( INCT 2016, JBRJ 2016), with an average of 5.5 collections/km², a moderate sampling effort. The existence of only three specimens of this species may suggest that it is not frequent, and an area of occurrence smaller than 5,000 km ² with less than five locations are indicative of a possibly threatened species; nevertheless, we do not have additional information regarding environmental aspects of the collection sites, what do not fully fulfill the IUCN conservation criteria ( IUCN 2001); so, we presently score this species as DD (Data Deficient).

Affinities:— This species is apparently related to Calyptranthes curta Sobral & Aguiar ( Sobral et al. 2012: 22; no image available online), from montane rainforests of the state of São Paulo, and may also remind Calyptranthes pteropoda O. Berg (1857 –1859: 47; type image: BR barcode 0000005229277!), from the states of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and is distinguished from these species by the characters given in the diagnosis.

Etymology:—The epithet was chosen after the type locality, Carangola, used here in apposition.

Paratypes:— BRAZIL. Minas Gerais: mun. Faria Lemos, Fazenda Santa Rita , March 2000, L.S. Leoni 4392 ( GFJP!, HUFSJ!) ; idem, January 2002, L.S. Leoni 4846 ( GFJP!, RB!) .

Figures

FIGURE 3. Calyptranthes carangola—holotype. Insert: detail of inflorescence (scale: 10 mm).