Neea Ruiz & Pav.

Costa, Daniel da S., Rossetto, Elson Felipe S. & Giacomin, Leandro L., 2025, Neea contracta (Nyctaginaceae), a New Species from Amazonia, Systematic Botany (Basel, Switzerland) 49 (4), pp. 743-748 : 743

Neea Ruiz & Pav. is one of the largest genera in the family Nyctaginaceae and comprises ca. 80 species ( Douglas and Spellenberg 2010) that are distributed in diverse habitats in the Neotropics, from wet rainforests to savanna formations ( Aymard-Corredor 2021).

Despite being a large genus in Nyctaginaceae , representatives of Neea are less abundant compared to other megadiverse tree groups in the Neotropics (e.g. Eschweilera Mart. ex DC. , Inga Mill. , Protium Burm.f. ) (Ter Steege et al. 2013). Moreover, the genus is notoriously known to be one of the most taxonomically difficult among neotropical flowering plant genera (Standley 1931; Rossetto et al. 2019; Douglas and Spellenberg 2010; Aymard-Corredor 2021). This notoriety can be attributed to the difficulty of finding unique, consistent combinations of morphological characters on herbarium specimens (see Standley 1931; Steyermark 1987; Douglas and Spellenberg 2010; Harling 2010; Aymard-Corredor 2021). Therefore, it is understandable that, for many groups of species in the genus, conventional morphology-based approaches may not be sufficient. Thus, alternative methods to gather evidence to aid species delimitation/identification have proven useful in resolving, recognizing, and understanding complexes and groups with confusing taxonomy ( Durgante et al. 2013; Prata et al. 2018; Costa et al. 2023). One of these methods that has proven valid for Neea is near-infrared spectroscopy (NIR) ( Costa et al. 2023).

While revising the collections of Neea at the Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amaz^onia herbarium (INPA), we observed specimens previously identified as Neea oppositifolia Ruiz & Pav. that, after careful morphological and spectral analyses, were found to comprise a different taxon and are here described as a new species. Together with the description, a key to the species of Amazonas state is given.