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The State of Santa Catarina, located in southern Brazil, presents great diversity of topography, landscapes and vegetation types. It also harbors a very rich biodiversity, and many species are exclusive to this territory. As a consequence of the destruction of most of its original vegetation, a considerable part of this biodiversity is threatened. This work presents a survey of the vascular flora exclusive to Santa Catarina, based on a thorough literature review. The compilation provides information on the distribution, environments, latest recorded date of collection, and conservation status of these species with bibliographic references. This information has great potential value for biodiversity conservation. More taxonomic and conservation studies are warranted since our results present strong evidence that there are profound knowledge gaps on Neotropical biodiversity, even for allegedly well-studied areas, thwarting the implementation of effective conservation policies.

This paper describes Plantago corvensis, a new species endemic to rocky cliffs in Serra do Corvo Branco, southern Santa Catarina, southern Brazil. The new species is morphologically very distinct from other Plantago species native to South America because of the distinctly petiolate ovate leaves, the retrorse trichomes on scape, and the 4-seeded fruits. Plantago corvensis is known from only one locality and, according to the IUCN criteria, is considered critically endangered (CR).

Allelopathy is a process by which a plant releases chemicals that inhibit competitors. Recent phytochemical studies have reported the presence of phenolic molecules in some species of Pilosocereus, which could be indicative of allelopathic effect. The aim of this study was to assess the allelopathic potential of the fruit pulp extract of Pilosocereus gounellei on the germination of seeds of Lactuca sativa and P. gounellei. We tested the effects of pulp extract at four different concentrations. We measured the osmotic potential of the extract at the different concentrations, in order to assess its effect on seed germination. The extract negatively affected the germination parameters of both species and effect was more significant at higher extract concentrations. The influence of the osmotic potential on the germination parameters was not significant for most of the studied parameters. We believe that our results are indicative that the fruit pulp extract of P. gounellei contains allelochemicals that delayed or inhibited seed germination of not only L. sativa, but also of seeds of their own species (autoallelopathy). Further studies are necessary to clarify the inhibition mechanisms, and how widespread the allelopathy is across other cactus species.

This work reviews the distribution and the conservation status of the 12 species of Plantago (Plantaginaceae) native to Brazil and presents potential distribution models for 8 of these species. The modeling procedure was carried out with a new online system dedicated to increase the biogeographic knowledge about plants and fungi in Brazil using different modeling strategies, depending on the number of points available. The models reflected reasonably well the known distribution of each species and can be used for conservation purposes, with the exception of one model for P. brasiliensis. The same points selected for model creation were also used to estimate the extent of occurrence and area of occupancy of these species in Brazil. According to the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) criteria, six species qualified as being of least concern, one as near threatened, three as endangered, and two as critically endangered. Also, six species of Plantago are exclusive to Brazil (P. cat...