Flora of Espírito Santo: Meliaceae

Abstract

Meliaceae has 50 genera and about 550 species distributed in the whole world, although with greater diversity in the pantropical region. In Brazil, there are 84 species distributed in seven genera. This study presents the floristic treatment of the Meliaceae species in the state of Espírito Santo. In order to achieve these results, we consulted the main herbaria in the country and performed field activities. The main results of this work include the morphological descriptions of the genera and species, identification keys, illustrations and taxonomic comments. In terms of the taxonomic novelties, 25 species belonging to four genera were found: One belonging to Cabralea, two to Cedrela, six to Guarea, and 16 to Trichilia. In this study, we also present a new species occurrence for the state and therefore, the two Trichilia species are provisionally treated as Trichilia sp. 1 and Trichilia sp. 2.

Key words:
angiosperms; flora; Atlantic forest; taxonomy