Novelties and notes on Plantago sect. Virginica (Plantaginaceae), including the description of a new species and a revised identification key

ABSTRACT

In this contribution I present novelties and notes on Plantago sect. Virginica. Specifically, I newly describe P. veadeirensis, a critically endangered, narrowly endemic species from northern Goiás state, central Brazil. The new species is remarkable for being the northernmost native Plantago species occurring in South America outside the Andes. The affinities with the morphologically closest allied species, P. hatschbachiana and P. pyrophila, are discussed, and its conservation status is assessed. I also present updates to the distribution of P. napiformis and P. pretoana, discuss nomenclatural aspects for the names P. australis, P. hirtella and P. myosuros, and provide an identification key to the genus Plantago in Brazil, Paraguay and Santa Cruz department, Bolivia.

KEYWORDS:

• Brazil
• Plantagineae
• Plantago napiformis
• Plantago pretoana
• Plantago veadeirensis

Acknowledgements

I thank the curators and staff of BHCB, CEN, CGMS, DDMS, EAC, HAS, HRB, HURB, IAC, TANG, TEPB, TUB, UESC, UB and UFMT for the loan of specimens, Lucas Cardoso Marinho for the illustrations of the new species, Rodrigo Penati for providing field photographs of Plantago pretoana, and two anonymous reviewers for contributing to improve this work. I also acknowledge three SYNTHESYS grants for visits to K, MA and P herbaria and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for a post-doctoral fellowship.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the SYNTHESYS Project [processes ES-TAF-6610, FR-TAF-6529 and GB-TAF-5317], and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) [process 153430/2018-4].