Supplement to the Rubiaceae in the Flora dos Estados de Goiás e Tocantins, Brazil: Nomenclatural revision, typifications, new records, new identifications, and new combinations
From Firenze University Press Journal: Journal of Plant Taxonomy and Geography (Webbia)
Piero G. Delprete, AMAP Lab, IRD, CNRS, CIRAD, INRA, Université de Montpellier, ; AMAP Lab, IRD, Herbier de Guyane,Cayenne, French Guiana
Before the 1960s, the floristic composition of the States of Goiás and Tocantins, Central-Western Brazil, was mostly known through the historical collections of European botanists travelling during the 1800s and the first decades of 1900, principally those of Johann Pohl (1976), Augustin de Saint-Hilaire (1944), Ernst Ule (1894, 2003), Auguste François Glaziou (1905, 1906, 1907, 1909a, 1909b, 1910, 1911), and George Gardner (1975). Starting from 1822, in Colonial Brazil, the region was called the Province of Goyaz, and 1889, when Brazil became a republic, it was re-named the State of Goiás. In 1988 the State of Goiáswas divided into two states, the southern portion remained the State of Goiás, and the northern portion became the State of Tocantins. Ecologically, the modern state of Goiás and the south-ern portion of the state of Tocantins are within the Cer-rado Biome, and the northern portion of the state of Tocantins is whitin the Amazon Region. The specimens collected during the historical expeditions of 1800s and through the first decades of 1900s are mostly present in European and North American herbaria, which in the 1960s were difficult to be studied by Brazilian botanists, due to the excessive costs of travelling. The original state of Goiás also included the area that nowadays corresponds to the Federal District, where Brasília, the capital of Brazil, is currently locat-ed. Up to the 1960s, Central-Western Brazil was a vast region that needed to be developped and connected by main roads with the rest of the country. This general developmental policy was initiated by President Getúlio Vargas (1882–1954) with the program “March to the We st ” (“Marcha para o Oeste”) during 1937–1945, to stimulate economic and agricultural growth in the Cen-tral-Western Region. The program was continued by the following President, Juselino Kubitshek (1902–1976), who founded the city of Brasilia on 21 April 1960, with the objective of moving the capital from Rio de Janeiro to the center of Brazil. That general move stimulated numerous local initiatives of political and economi-cal development, as aggressive agricultural expansion, building of infrastructures and main roads, the florish-ing of academic education, scientific research, and envi-ronmental conservation. On 11 January 1961, President Juselino Kubitshek established the two national parks present in the state of Goiás, the Parque Nacional das Emas and the Parque Nacional da Chapada dos Vea-deiros. On 15 December 1961, President João Goulart (1919–1976) inaugurated the University of Brasília. In 1960, Howard Samuel Irwin (1928–2019) was employed by the New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York. Shortly after his appointment, Irwin initiated the project Flora of the Brazilian Planalto, an international collaboration composed by the New York Botanical Garden and several Brazilian institutions, and most importantly the recently founded University of Brasilia. Irwin was the founder, coordinator, and main collector of this project from 1964 to 1972. During those eight years, in collaboration with several Brazilian and for-eign botanists, he gathered 32,195 collections (Irwin et al . 5001–37196; with up to 10 duplicates for each num-ber) in the states of Goiás (which in those days included the state of Tocantins), Minas Gerais, and Bahia, and the Federal District. In 1971, Irwin was nominated Execu-tive Director of the New York Botanical Garden, and in 1972 he passed the project Flora of the Brazilian Pla-nalto to William “Bill” Russell Anderson (1942–2013), who had already accompanied Irwin in collecting expe-ditions during previous years for the project. During 1973–1975 Anderson gathered, in collaboration with several Brazilian and foreign botanists, 5,424 collections (Anderson et al. 6200–11624; with up to 10 duplicates for each number) in the states of Pará, Mato Grosso, Goiás, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The col-lections realized during that project were distributed to more than 25 herbaria in Brazil and abroad (the first set of duplicates was deposited at UB, and the second set at NY), with the objective to send specimens to fam-ily specialists for identification. The field books of Irwin and Anderson are kept in NY, and have been regularly updated as identifications of the numerous specialists arrived at NY. The examination of those field books is extremely important in solving cases of ambigu-ous or erroneous information present on the specimen labels. It should be emphasized that due to the gather-ings of Irwin and Anderson being preserved in NY, it is the largest plant collection from the States of Goiás and Tocantins outside Brazil. At the end of the 1960s, José Ângelo Rizzo (Feb. 1931–Nov. 2018), Professor at the Federal University of Goiás, Goiânia, initiated, coordinated, and realized a collection plan for the State of Goiás, which at that time still included the modern State of Tocantins. The collec-tion plan was presented in the first volume of the series Flora do Estado de Goiás — Coleção Rizzo (hereafter FGT), with the subtitle Plano de Coleção (R i z z o, 19 81). The botanical collections were made by Rizzo and col-laborators in 28 stations distributed throughout the state of Goiás, from 1968 to 1974, producing 9,605 gather-ings. In 1988 the State of Goiás was divided into two states; hence, out of the 28 collecting stations, 17 are in the State of Goiás, and 11 are in the State of Tocantins. A set of specimen duplicates collected during the project Flora of the Brazilian Planalto was not deposited at UFG, because Rizzo had the objective to limit the specimens in that herbarium to his own collections, which explains the phrase “Coleção Rizzo” in the title of the floristic series that he coordinated. After the 1980s, the botanical collections in the states of Goiás and Tocantins continued to increase, as a result of several collecting programs realized by Bra-zilian and foreign botanists, and the specimens gathered in these two states are mostly deposited in the herbaria of Goiânia (UFG), Brasília (CEN, IBGE, and UB), Rio de Janeiro (RB), New York (NY), Kew (K), and Utrecht (U). Rizzo distributed duplicates of his collections to numer-ous specialists working in Brazilian and foreign institu-tions for the preparation of plant families for the series Flora do Estado de Goiás — Coleção Rizzo.Starting from 1981, Rizzo coordinated the publica-tion of the series Flora do Estado de Goiás — Coleção Riz-zo (hereafter FGT). The first 14 volumes, published dur-ing 1981–1991, had this title. From volume 15, published in 1993, and onwards, due to the division of Goiás into two states, the series was renamed Flora dos Estados de Goiás e Tocantins — Coleção Rizzo. The volumes of the floristic series were published at a steady pace, reaching volume 50 (family Simaroubaceae; Devecchi & Pirani, 2021), published in 2021, three years after Rizzo’s passing away, as he assisted in the editing of the last three volumes while he was still alive. A biography of José Ângelo Rizzo was published by Galli (2017). The FGT series is currently coordinated by Vera Lucia Gomes Klein, who is also the current Director of the UFG Herbarium.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/jopt-15948
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