''Microlicia minensis'' is a critically endangered plant species endemic to

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

, known to live only in

Serra da Canastra National Park Serra da Canastra National Park () is a national park in the Canastra Mountains of the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil. Location Serra da Canastra National Park is in the south west of Minas Gerais to the north of Rio Grande. It is in the Cerrado ...

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil, being the fourth largest state by area and the second largest in number of inhabitants with a population of 20,539,989 according to the 2022 Brazilian census, 2022 census. Located in ...

state. It grows in ''

campo rupestre The ''campo rupestre'' ("rupestrian grassland") is a discontinuous montane subtropical ecoregion occurring across three different biomes in Brazil: Cerrado, Atlantic Forest and Caatinga. Originally, ''campo rupestre'' was used to characterize th ...

'' and ''campo limpo'' (montane grassland) from 1200 to 1340 meters elevation on sandy soils. The species has a limited distribution, with an

area of occupancy Area is the measure of a region's size on a surface. The area of a plane region or ''plane area'' refers to the area of a shape or planar lamina, while ''surface area'' refers to the area of an open surface or the boundary of a three-dimen ...

(AOO) of only 8 km². While all the known populations are within the national park, its habitat is threatened by the increasing intensity and frequency of fires. Martins and Almeda (2017) assessed the species' conservation status as

Critically Endangered An IUCN Red List critically endangered (CR or sometimes CE) species is one that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild. As of December 2023, of t ...

(CR): B2ab(iii). The species was first described as ''Lavoisiera canastrensis'' by Almeda and A.B. Martins in 2017. In 2021 Versiane ''et al.'' merged ''Lavoisiera'' into the genus ''Microlicia''. Since ''Microlicia canastrensis'' already existed, ''L. canastrensis'' was renamed ''Microlicia minensis''. The species epithet, ''minensis'', refers to Minas Gerais state.Versiane AFA, Romero R, Reginato M, Welker CAD, Michelangeli FA, Goldenberg R (2021) Phylogenetic analysis of Microlicieae (Melastomataceae), with emphasis on the re-circumscription of the large genus Microlicia. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 197(1): 35–60. https://doi.org/10.1093/botlinnean/boab011

References

Endemic flora of Brazil Melastomataceae Flora of Southeast Brazil {{Melastomataceae-stub