A família Arecaceae C.H. Schultz-Schultzenstein na APA de Algodoal/Maiandeua, Maracanã, Pará, Brasil

Abstract

The Algodoal/Maiandeua APA is located in the municipality of Maracanã, northeast coast of Pará State, occupying an area of 385 ha, between the geographic coordinates 00° 34' 4" to 00° 34'30" S and 47° 31' OS" to 47° 34'12" W. The area consists of mangrove vegetation in the southern, central and northern portions of the island; hypersaline fields covered by herbaceous vegetation within or near the mangroves; barrier formation in the interior of the island and restinga vegetation covering much of the sandy plain in the northern, northeastern and western portions of the island. The present work is a survey of the Arecaceae species that occur in this area. The Arecaceae family is composed of about 3,000 species distributed in 189 genera, occurring especially in the tropics and subtropics. In Brazil there are 200 species and 39 genera, of these, 8 genera and 140 species are found only in the Amazon, where the genera most found are Bactris and Geonoma. For the study of the Arecaceae of the APA, excursions were made to collect material in the months of October 2006 and February 2007. Material already herborized and incorporated in the collection of the herbarium "João Murça Pires" of the Emilio Goeldi Museum of Pará (MG) was also used; all material was hydrated in a 70% ammonia solution in order to facilitate the description and illustration of the species. Through literature reviews and collections identified by specialists, the differential characteristics of the taxons were confirmed and an identification key was assembled for the species that occur in the APA. Nine species distributed in eight genera were identified for the family, namely: Astrocaryum vulgare Mart., Bactris campestris Poepp. ex Mart, Bactris hirta Mart, Desmoncus orthacanthos Mart, Euterpe oJeracea Mart, Mauritia flexuosa L.f., Mauritiella armata (Mart.) Burret, Maximiliana maripa (Aubl.) Drude and Oenocarpus distichus Mart.