regisrafael's Journal

One of my personal goals on Inaturalist is photograph and publish very rare taxa. For this purpose, I defined as very rare the taxa that have less than 10 observations on Inaturalist. In October 4 I decided explore a new trail in Ilópolis. The vegetation is characterized by Pinus elliottii, exhotic and invasive, that grew and formed an under forest with native vegetation. I found this Melastomataceae bush that I recognized as Miconia, but a species that I never saw before.

I used Flora e Funga do Brasil internet site to find the species of Miconia occuring in Rio Grande do Sul state, many of them was in the genus Leandra. A good character that I found to separate the species was anther colour, only two species have pink anther in Rio Grande do Sul, M. purpureovillosa and M. erostrata. I compared the two species in speciesLink internet site (https://specieslink.net/search/), I found that M. erostrata have a more rounded leave and is whitish underside. This was the second observation in Inaturalist identified as Miconia purpureovillosa.

The species is known to the brazilian states of Minas Gerais, São Paulo, Paraná, Santa Catarina, Rio Grande do Sul and Rio de Janeiro.

Why is rare?

Occurrence area in South America where have fewers naturalists.
Hard to identify and there are few botanists identifying in the area of occurrence
The bush attract little attention and live in areas of low human traffic.
Need key photos to identify.