Agarista niederleinii
Agarista niederleinii is a shrub or small tree native to Brazil, belonging to the heath family, Ericaceae. It bears small white flowers and thick-walled capsules.[1] Kew includes it among the accepted species of Agarista.[2]
Appearance
Judd describes plants up to five metres tall, with bark furrowed lengthwise. Their leathery leaves vary from oval to oblong. Flower clusters grow beside the leaves; the cylindrical petal tubes are five to eight millimetres long. The fruits are rounded or shortly egg-shaped capsules.[1]
Varieties
Judd's treatment distinguishes two varieties mainly by their leaves. Variety niederleinii has smaller leaves, usually with blunt, rounded or slightly notched tips ending in a small point. Variety acutifolia generally has larger, more pointed leaves and longer leaf stalks.[1]
The typical variety is recorded from cloud forest, thickets and rocky crests and slopes, at 850–2,000 metres. The account places variety acutifolia in lower-elevation thickets, grassy margins and streamside vegetation.[1]
Distribution and ecological records
Judd's 1995 account covers the southern Brazilian states from Paraná to Rio Grande do Sul.[1] A later vegetation study reported the species from Serra do Brigadeiro State Park in Minas Gerais. Researchers sampled three rocky highland sites using 300 one-square-metre plots. In their 2020 paper, A. niederleinii was associated with the combined Pico do Elefante and Pico do Mamute sites in an indicator-species analysis. This is a local community finding, not evidence that the plant is confined to those peaks.[3]
Name
Hermann Sleumer published the name Leucothoe niederleinii in 1935. Walter Judd transferred it to Agarista in 1984 and described variety acutifolia that year.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Judd, W. S. Agarista niederleinii. New York Botanical Garden, electronic treatment based on Flora Neotropica Monograph 66 (1995). Accessed 9 October 2026.
- ↑ Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Agarista: accepted species. Plants of the World Online. Accessed 9 October 2026.
- ↑ Campos, P. V., Villa, P. M., Schaefer, C. E. G. R., Alves-Nunes, J., Porembski, S. and Neri, A. V. (2020). Beta diversity, community composition and structure of high altitude grasslands along an altitudinal gradient in southeastern Brazil. Revista de Biología Tropical 68(3); doi:10.15517/rbt.v68i3.37704, methods and Table 1. Accessed 9 October 2026.