Rediscovery of Pilosocereus oligolepsis (Cactaceae) in the State of Roraima, Brazil Author(s): Pâmela Lavor , Ricardo De Oliveira Perdiz , Leonardo M. Versieux & Alice Calvente Source: Cactus and Succulent Journal, 88(3):137-143. Published By: Cactus and Succulent Society of America DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.2985/015.088.0306 URL: http://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.2985/015.088.0306 BioOne (www.bioone.org) is a nonprofit, online aggregation of core research in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences. BioOne provides a sustainable online platform for over 170 journals and books published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses. Your use of this PDF, the BioOne Web site, and all posted and associated content indicates your acceptance of BioOne’s Terms of Use, available at www.bioone.org/page/ terms_of_use. Usage of BioOne content is strictly limited to personal, educational, and non-commercial use. Commercial inquiries or rights and permissions requests should be directed to the individual publisher as copyright holder. BioOne sees sustainable scholarly publishing as an inherently collaborative enterprise connecting authors, nonprofit publishers, academic institutions, research libraries, and research funders in the common goal of maximizing access to critical research. PÂMELA LAVOR1*, RICARDO DE OLIVEIRA PERDIZ2, LEONARDO M. VERSIEUX1 & ALICE CALVENTE1 Rediscovery of Pilosocereus oligolepsis (Cactaceae) in the state of Roraima, Brazil Pilosocereus oligolepis is a species of Cactaceae that is known only from three old type collections in Brazil (Roraima state) and Guyana. It is the only species of this genus to occur in northern Brazil. Due to the paucity of specimens and lack of precise locality data we undertook fieldwork in different vegeta- tion types of Roraima aiming to find the species in the field. Populations of P. oligolepis were found in two previously unknown areas, occurring on granitic rock outcrops inside a vegetation mosaic of sea- sonal forests and savannas. Thus, it was possible to expand our knowledge of this species, increasing its occurrence and distributional data, as well as to provide pictures of the plants in their habitat and pro- pose an updated conservation status. Keywords: Pilosocereus, new record, Roraima, Cactaceae, Cactoideae. INTRODUCTION of Cereus oligolepis Vaupel (the basionym of P. oligo- Brazil has the world’s richest Flora (Forzza et al., lepis) was collected by the German botanist Ernest 2012; BFG, 2015) and one of the most representative Heinrich Georg Ule in 1910 in “Serra do Mel” and genera of Cactaceae of the Brazilian Flora is Pilosocer- is deposited in the herbarium of Berlin. Given the eus Byles & Rowley, encompassing 42 species (Hunt incomplete condition of the type, Zappi (1994) des- et al., 2006; Zappi et al., 2016) disjunctly distribut- ignated as neotype a collection of Luetzelburg from ed across the Americas in two areas: (1) Eastern Bra- 1927 at the area of “São Marcos” in the Surumu river zil and (2) Extreme Northern Brazil, Northern South basin, also deposited in the herbarium of Berlin. A America, Central and North Americas. The genus is third recorded location for P. oligolepis is the type col- widespread in forest formations (Atlantic and Amazo- lection of Pilosocereus kanukuensis (Alexander) Leuenb. nic forests) and in more arid environments (Caatinga, which is considered a synonym of P. oligolepis (Zappi, dry woodland, Cerrado, savannas and desert regions of 1994); this specimen was collected by A. C. Smith in North and Central America; Zappi, 1994). 1938, in the slopes of the Kanuku Mountains, drain- A recent list of Brazilian rare plants includes 56 age of the Moku Moku Creek (Zappi, 1994). The species of cacti endemic to the country that are rare species was never recollected, being recorded solely by (Machado, 2009). Although the occurrence of most these three cited collections. Pilosocereus species is well-documented (Zappi, 1994; Roraima is located in Northern Brazil, on the bor- Taylor & Zappi, 2004; Hunt et al., 2006; Menezes der of the Amazonian Forest, close to Guyana and et al., 2011; Zappi et al., 2016), Pilosocereus oligolepis Venezuela, and features a mosaic of different for- (Vaup.) Byles & Rowley is known only from a few est and non-forest types (Flores & Rodrigues, 2010). collections corresponding to type material referred Among non-forest formations in the state of Rorai- to Brazil (Roraima state) and Guyana, and therefore ma, one can distinguish the ‘Lavrado’, local term to could be listed as a rare species. The type specimen designate the savannas in the region (Barbosa et al., 2007). This vegetation, also referred to as the ecore- * Corresponding author. Part of the Thesis of first author. Pre- sent address: Programa de pós-graduação em Sistemática e gion of the Guyana’s savannas, has been little-studied Evolução, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, floristically (Flores & Rodrigues, 2010), and covers an Natal, Brazil. 59078-970. Phone: +55 84 3215 3443. E-mail: area of over 60,000 km2 between Brazil, Guyana and [email protected]. 1 Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Centro de Venezuela, of which 70% occurs in Brazilian territo- Biociências, Departamento de Botânica e Zoologia, Labora- ry (Barbosa et al., 2007). Roraima has 3,075 species tório de Botânica Sistemática, Natal, RN, Brazil. 59078-970. of angiosperms cataloged (BFG, 2015), placing it in 2 Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Programa de Pós-graduação em Ciências Biológicas (Botânica), Manaus, only 18th position regarding angiosperm species rich- AM, Brazil. 69060-001. ness from Brazil. In our view, this number is severely 2016 VOLUME 88 NUMBER 3 137 1. Distribution map and collection effort of Pilosocereus oligolepis in the state of Roraima, Brazil. underestimated due to incomplete sampling. and an unnamed site in municipally of Bonfim (Fig. As means to obtain samples of P. oligolepis to 1). include in a phylogenetic investigation of Pilosocer- The specimens collected were dried and included eus, the authors recently searched for specimens of into the collections of UFRN (Universidade Federal the species in the wild in different vegetation types do Rio Grande do Norte) and UFRR (Universidade of Roraima. This paper aims to relate new and pres- Federal de Roraima) herbaria. Morphological descrip- ent-day occurrence data for P. oligolepis, update its tion of the species was based exclusively on specimens geographic distribution data, conservation status and collected in this work. The identification of the spe- depict living specimens of this rare cactus in its natu- cies was based on Zappi (1994) and Hunt et al. (2006). ral habitat. Geographic distributions presented for this spe- Despite the motivation to gather updated informa- cies were based on coordinates of recent collection tion about a rare and poorly known cactus, we had a data obtained in this work, and in literature sources particular interest to investigate this species. Pilosocer- (Hunt et al., 2006). We used the software package R eus oligolepis is of great significance in order to under- (R Core Team, 2015), the cartographic base of the stand the biogeography of the genus because it is the maps package (Becker et al., 2015) and color palette only species to occur in northern Brazil, since the RColorBrewer package (Neuwirth, 2014) to make the great majority of taxa are distributed in eastern Bra- map presented. zil, and the remaining are in northern South Ameri- RESULTS ca (only P. lanuginosus (L.) Byles & G.D.Rowley) and Central and North America. Thus, one could hypoth- In this study we describe new occurrence data for esize that this species represents a taxon intermedi- the poorly known P. oligolepis. During recent visits to ate between Brazilian and non-Brazilian species of the different vegetation types of Roraima, populations of genus. P. oligolepis were found in two newly discovered areas. MATERIAL AND METHODS These results increase the area of distribution known for the species. Populations of P. oligolepis were found Field work in areas of possible occurrence of P. o l i - in Serra Grande (municipally of Cantá) and in Serra golepis was done in November 2014 along the munici- do Tabaco (municipally of Amajari) (Fig. 1). It can be palities of Amajari, Boa Vista, Bonfim and Cantá in considered a rare species in both sites, with few indi- the state of Roraima, northern Brazil. The following viduals contributing to each population. areas were visited while searching for populations of Pilosocereus oligolepis inhabits an area formed by a the species: “Serra do Tabaco” (municipally of Amaja- mosaic of savannas and seasonal forests, interspersed ri); “Serra da Moça” (municipally of Boa Vista); “Serra with granitic rock outcrops. The arboreal species Ana- Grande” and “Serra da Lua” (municipally of Cantá); cardium occidentale L. (Anacardiaceae), Byrsonima 138 CAcTUS AND SUccULENT JOURNAL 2. Habitat of Pilosocereus oligolepis in Serra Grande, municipally of Cantá, Brazil. crassifolia (L.) Kunth (Malpighiaceae) and Curatella Creek (Takutu tributary), 150–400m, March–April americana L. (Dilleniaceae), dominate the landscape 1938, A. C. Smith 3380 (NY, holo., US, K, iso.). in the savanna, while the seasonal forest formations Shrub, 1–2 m tall, unbranched or branched at are dominated by species of Leguminosae, Sapotaceae base; branches erect to semi-scandent (Fig. 3); epi- and Salicaceae ( Jaramillo and Barbosa, unpublished dermis grayish-green to dark green, smooth; ribs data; Jaramillo, 2015). In Serra Grande, the individu- 4–6, with straight sinuses and conspicuous transverse als showed only flower buds, growing exposed on the folds above the young areoles (Fig. 4). Areoles < 1.0 rock outcrops encircled by seasonal forest. The popu- cm, with long hairs < 1.5 cm. Spines dark brown in lation of Serra do Tabaco was found on a rock out- the base and pale yellow at apex; centrals 1–6, < 3.0 crop surrounded by savanna fields and all individuals cm; radials 8–16, < 1.4 cm (Figs.