New records of Peperomia armondii Yunck , Peperomia hispidula ( Sw . ) A . Dietr . , and Peperomia mandioccana Miq . for the state of Espírito Santo , southeastern Brazil

We present here the first record of Peperomia armondii, P. hispidula and P. mandioccana for the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil. Taxonomic comments, a distribution map and images of these species are presented.

Peperomia Ruiz & Pav. is a pantropical genus holding about 1,600 species, and regarded as one of the largest genera of flowering plants (Frodin 2004;Samain et al. 2009).Its species preferentially inhabit moist and shady places within rainforests (Carvalho-Silva and Guimarães 2008) and are characterized by a terrestrial, epiphytic or rupiculous herbaceous habit.Peperomia spp.have alternate, opposite to verticillate leaves, inflorescences in spikes, small and numerous flowers with one pistil and two lateral stamens and protected by a peltate bract, and drupe fruits (Yuncker 1974).In Brazil, 162 species are recorded, with most of them being restricted to the Atlantic Forest (138 species).In Espírito Santo state, 48 species are found and four of them are endemics (Guimarães et al. 2013).
Espírito Santo state was entirely covered by the Atlantic Forest and just 11% of its original forest coverage still remains (SOS Mata Atlântica 2011).Several studies show high species richness for several taxa in this state, as for tree species (Thomaz andMonteiro 1997), Bromeliaceae (Wendt et al. 2010), Malpighiaceae (Almeida and Mamede 2014) birds (Simon 2000), lepidoptera (Brown Jr. and Freitas 2000) and non-volant mammals (Passamani et al. 2000).Werneck et al. (2011) showed a high level of endemism in Espírito Santo and called attention to biological importance of the state.
This study results from fieldwork and herbaria research within the "Flora do Espírito Santo" project and focuses on the family Piperaceae.The first records for three species in the state of Espírito Santo are presented (Peperomia armondii Yunck., P. hispidula (Sw) A. Dietr., and P. mandioccana Miq.) along with a distribution map and images of these species.
This species was found in the municipality of Iuna, in Serra do Caparaó, southwestern Espírito Santo state (Figure 2).

Peperomia mandioccana
Peperomia mandioccana is characterized by small herbs, hirtellous, opposite leaves, frequently alternate downwardly, yellow glandular dots; spikes up to 3.5 cm long and drupes with a pseudocupule (Figure 4) (Yuncker 1974).It was originally described by Miquel (1847) with specimens from the state of Rio de
Guimarães and Carvalho-Silva (2012)o Missiones, Argentina.Guimarães and Carvalho-Silva (2012)reported this species from the state of São Paulo, and Guimarães et al. (2013) extended its distribution for states of Minas Gerais, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul, excluding