Notícias
Serra dos Órgãos National Park is the protected area with the richest flora known in Brazil, according to a study
Serra dos Órgãos National Park | Photo: Marcus Nadruz Coelho
The list of native flora in the Serra dos Órgãos National Park (PARNASO) has just been updated, revealing that this is the Conservation Unit with the highest number of plant species recorded in Brazil by scientists to date. There are a total of 3,026 species, which corresponds to 38% of the species known to exist in the state of Rio de Janeiro, in an area corresponding to only 0.5% of the state's territory.
The new list represents a 26.7% increase over previous surveys. The species are divided into 2,342 angiosperms (flowering plants), one gymnosperm, 433 ferns and lycophytes, and 250 bryophytes. Of the total, 28 species are endemic to PARNASO, meaning they only occur in the park, and 190 are endemic to the state of Rio de Janeiro. In addition, the park is home to 102 species assessed as threatened with extinction.
Rio de Janeiro, the state that served as a gateway for most of the naturalists who came to study Brazilian flora since the 19th century, also has two other Conservation Units with a wealth of plant species described by science: Itatiaia National Park, with 2,642 species, the second most floristically diverse, and the Tinguá Biological Reserve, which, with 1,310 species, is the fourth most diverse, after Caparaó National Park, on the border between Minas Gerais and Espírito Santo, with 1,804 known plant species. These data were obtained from the Catalog of Plants of Brazil's Conservation Units.
The families with the highest number of species in PARNASO are Orchidaceae, Melastomataceae, Asteraceae, Myrtaceae, Rubiaceae, and Bromeliaceae. A significant number (38%) of the listed species have only one record in the herbarium, and these species can be considered locally rare. The authors of the study, researchers Marcus Nadruz Coelho, from the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden, and Cecília Cronemberger, from ICMBio, argue that more botanical expeditions to PARNASO are needed to try to obtain more records of rare species and also to find new species not yet known to science.