CAPITULUM: The International Compositae Alliance Newsletter

Where Linnaeus meets Wallace: New botanical discoveries highlight the biological shortfalls in the easternmost campos rupestres of Minas Gerais, Brazil

Paulo Gonella

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8332-5326

Carolina M. Siniscalchi

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3349-5081

Benoit Loeuille

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6898-7858

DOI: https://doi.org/10.53875/capitulum.01.1.05

Keywords: South America, Cerrado, taxonomy, Neotropical mountains

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Abstract

The Linnean and Wallacean shortfalls—respectively, the gap between named and unnamed species and the incomplete knowledge of species distributions—remain major impediments to documenting and conserving biodiversity. Recent fieldwork in the historically neglected, easternmost quartzitic mountains of the Rio Doce valley (João Pinto Formation), Minas Gerais, Brazil, demonstrates how intensified botanical exploration can address both shortfalls in one of the most diverse yet unevenly studied Brazilian vegetation types, the campos rupestres. Although long overshadowed by the Espinhaço Range core area, these disjunct sierras (including Serra do Padre Ângelo, Pico da Aliança, and the Sete Salões State Park complex) have yielded multiple taxonomic novelties and significant distributional extensions, particularly in Asteraceae, one of the dominant families of campos rupestres. Newly documented endemic taxa and recent descriptions in Vernonieae, alongside additional records of species previously known only from nearby granitic inselbergs, reveal a floristic interchange with the Espinhaço Range and highlight ecological disjunctions between adjacent rocky habitats. Despite recent collecting efforts, the region remains strikingly under-sampled (e.g., low numbers of available biological records), and key areas have suffered recent wildfire and lack effective protection. These findings underscore the João Pinto Formation mountains as a priority for systematic surveys to refine species limits, close distributional gaps, and provide the empirical basis for conservation planning focused on a singular and endemic-rich flora.