Agarista duartei
Agarista duartei is a small woody plant of Brazil's Serra do Cipó, in Minas Gerais. It belongs to the heath family, Ericaceae, and has narrow, stiff leaves and small tubular flowers.[1] Kew accepts it as a species of Agarista.[2]
Appearance
The Serra do Cipó flora describes an upright subshrub 30–70 centimetres tall. Its leaves are folded lengthwise and are borne on short, rigid stalks. These characters help distinguish it from Agarista angustissima, whose leaf stalks are slender and flexible. The flowers have greenish-white, cream-yellow or reddish petal tubes, six to nine millimetres long. Brown, rounded capsules form after flowering.[1]
Judd's earlier account describes the leaves as curved, usually 1.2–3.5 centimetres long and only a few millimetres wide. Their bases run down towards the leaf stalk.[3]
Habitat and seasonal records
The 2014 flora treats the species as endemic to Serra do Cipó. It grows in rocky upland vegetation, including sandy or stony ground subject to flooding. Regional specimens were collected in flower from October to February and in July, and in fruit from December to April and in September. This is a collection calendar, not a fixed flowering schedule for every plant.[1]
Judd recorded open sandy and rocky sites at about 1,300–1,400 metres above sea level.[3]
Botanical history
Hermann Sleumer described it as Leucothoe duartei in 1959. Walter Judd transferred it to Agarista in 1984. The name is based on Duarte's collection 2103, gathered in Serra do Cipó in December 1949; the principal type specimen is held in the Rio de Janeiro botanical garden herbarium.[3]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Romão, G. O. and Souza, V. C. (2014). Flora da Serra do Cipó, Minas Gerais: Ericaceae. Boletim de Botânica da Universidade de São Paulo 32(1), 43–70; account 1.4, pp.46–48. Accessed 9 October 2026.
- ↑ Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Agarista: accepted species. Plants of the World Online. Accessed 9 October 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Judd, W. S. Agarista duartei. New York Botanical Garden, electronic treatment based on Flora Neotropica Monograph 66 (1995). Accessed 9 October 2026.