Performance of miconia albicans (sw.) triana, an aluminum‐accumulating species, in acidic and calcareous soils

Abstract

Seedlings of Miconia albicans (Sw.) Triana, an aluminum‐accumulating shrub, which grow naturally on acid latosols of the cerrado region of central Brazil, were grown in a strongly acid dystrophic soil, a strongly acid gallery forest soil and a calcareous soil in a pot culture experiment. The seedlings grew better in the fertile acid soil than in the dystrophic soil. They failed to grow in the calcareous soil, producing only a single pair of yellowed, necrotic leaves with low Al concentration after the emergence of a first pair of green leaves. Plants with chlo‐rotic leaves, transplanted from the calcareous to the acid soils, showed complete recovery of chlorotic leaves and a concomitant increase in the Al concentration in leaves.

Plants growing in the calcareous soil with chlorotic leaves also showed complete recovery when parts of their root systems were grown in an AlCl₃. solution containing 10 mg Al L^‐1. Plants grown in gallery forest soil, when transplanted to the calcareous soil, showed reduced growth and had significantly lower Al concentrations in their young leaves than when grown in gallery forest soil. Older leaves turned yellow, with the intensity of yellowing increasing from the younger to the older leaves while plants lost their leaves prematurely. Aluminum probably plays some specific role in the metabolism of this species.

Key words:

• Mineral nutrition
• cerrado
• savanna