Agarista eucalyptoides

Tilcayo Cats original · Plants · Sources and editorial assessment · Originals retention rule

Agarista eucalyptoides is a shrub or small tree of the heath family, Ericaceae, native to eastern and southern Brazil and northern Uruguay. It has thick bark, leathery leaves and clusters of small tubular flowers.

Appearance

Judd describes plants reaching about five metres, occasionally eight. The trunks may be contorted, with thick, corky, furrowed bark. Leaves are usually 2.5–8 centimetres long, on slender, flexible stalks. Their arrangement can vary even along one twig.

The axes of the flower clusters bear rust-coloured hairs. The petal tubes are six to ten and a half millimetres long, usually white but sometimes reddish. The fruit is a small dry capsule.

Distribution and habitat

The species grows in open rocky vegetation, thickets, forest margins and cerrado. Judd's treatment includes upland sites and some lower-elevation records. In Bahia, the regional flora records it in mountain grassland and on rock outcrops.

Dalastra and Heiden reported the species from Espírito Santo in a paper assigned to the 2026 volume of Bonplandia. The new state record came from re-examining collections previously identified as other plants. It represents an improvement in the documented range, rather than evidence that the species had recently arrived there.

Reproduction

A 2019 conference abstract described hand-pollination experiments on eleven plants at Ibitipoca. The researchers reported self-incompatibility. Cross-pollinated flowers produced fruit more often than naturally pollinated flowers, which they interpreted as pollen limitation at that site. The abstract is a limited study report, not a measurement of reproductive success throughout the species' range.

Names

The species was first named Andromeda eucalyptoides in 1826 and transferred to Agarista in 1834. Leucothoe eucalyptoides is another historical combination. Kew also treats Agarista multiflora as a synonym.