Butia leptospatha

Butia (boo-TEE-ah) leptospatha (lehp-toh-SPAH-tah)
Image-cncflora.jbrj.gov.br
Scientific Classification
Genus: Butia (boo-TEE-ah) Species: leptospatha (lehp-toh-SPAH-tah)
Synonyms
None set.
Native Continent
America
Morphology
Habit: Solitary Leaf type: Pinnate
Culture
Survivability index
Common names
None.

Habitat and Distribution

Brazil West-Central, and Paraguay. The species grows in open areas of cerrado.

Nova Odessa, Brazil. Dr. Harri Lorenzi's PLANTARUM, Instituto Plantarum de Estudos da Flora LTDA. Photo by Al in Kona.

Description

solitary stem, acaulescent or underground, up to 40 cm. Fruits in late spring, and these fruits are eaten by small rodents for easy access. (cncflora.jbrj.gov.br)

Syagrus leptospatha was discovered in 1936, described by Burret (1940) and not recollected again until 58 years later in 1994 (Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguay). Glassman (1987) wrote that it was “probably extinct.” Today, its former habitat is dominated and threatened by soybean cultivation. Phylogenetic character analyses of the Attaleinae show that Syagrus leptospatha aligns closely with Butia species (Noblick unpublished), rather than with other Syagrus. Butia leptospatha differs from Syagrus by having no noticeable deep grooves in its onion skin-like, paper-thin bracts. Its leaf anatomy as illustrated in Glassman (1987) shows vascular bundles on both the adaxial and abaxial surface as in other Butia (Syagrus species have vascular bundles only on the abaxial surface). Butia leptospatha, B. campicola (Barb. Rodr.) Noblick and B. exospadix have dark purple fruit, are acaulescent, have spicate inflorescences, have long peduncles that (usually) project the inflorescence in fruit above the peduncular bract (sometimes substantially so) and have the narrow grass-like leaflets. Based on its smooth peduncular bracts, its leaf anatomy, the phylogenetic analyses and its similarity to two other Butia species, I am here in transferring Syagrus leptospatha to Butia. (L. Noblick, The grassy Butia: Two new species and a new combination. 2006)

Comments and Curiosities

Butia leptospatha is a species with a very restricted distribution, extremely rare and threatened by the expansion of soy plantations. It is suspected, due to the conversion of native vegetation in crops in their occurrence region, that their habitat is declining in area and quality, the species is suffering a decline in the number of mature individuals, and that the remaining subpopulations are small and are isolated from one another. The AOO is 8 km². (cncflora.jbrj.gov.br)

Species not endemic to Brazil, occurring in the Cerrado, exclusively in the State of Mato Grosso do Sul (Leitman et al ., 2012) and was located only in the region that extends south of the city of Campo Grande, Ponta Pora and to Peter Juan Caballero, Paraguay. The species was considered extinct, but was rediscovered 50 years after collection of material-type, Paraguay. It grows in open areas of cerrado changed, found itself seriously threatened by the advance of soy plantations (cncflora.jbrj.gov.br)