Three New Species of Vellozia from Pico das Almas, Bahia, Brazil, with an Account of Their Leaf Anatomy

Abstract

Three new endemic species of Vellozia were found during work on the floristic inventory of Pico das Almas, Bahia, coordinated by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Universidade de Saio Paulo and Centro de Pesquisa da Lavoura Cacaueira (Itabuna, BA). All three species belong to the group that includes V. burk-marxii L. B. Smith & Ayensu, V. hemisphaerica Seubert and V. jolyi L. B. Smith. This group is a very natural assemblage, with an autapomorphy represented by a depressed-obovoid hypanthium and with fibro-vascular bundles oriented radially above the furrows, although the latter characteristic has not been found in V. jolyi and V canelinha. Since the early works of Ayensu (1969, 1974) and Menezes (1970, 1971), leaf anatomy has been found to be useful in supporting the separation of species in Velloziaceae because "each species exhibits distinct mesophyll and epidermal features that permit their individual identification" (Ayensu, 1974). This is quite true for this group, which is confined to the Espinhago Range in Bahia, with greatest frequency in the area that extends from Mucuge in the North to Rio de Contas in the South.