New records of Passiflora L . ( Passifloraceae ) species from Maranhão state and northeastern Brazil

We present here new records of Passiflora (Passifloraceae sensu stricto) species from Maranhão state, Brazil: P. cincinnata Mast., P. picturata Ker Gawl., and P. vespertilio L. This is the first report of occurrence of P. vespertilio to northeastern Brazil. Our data reinforces the need for more collections in Maranhão, as the great environmental richness of the state is not yet sufficiently studied.

Currently, 19 species of Passiflora are known from Maranhão state, Brazil (Flora do Brasil 2020[2017]).Research on the Passifloraceae s.s. in Maranhão is scarce and limited to localized surveys and reports of new occurrences (Koch et al. 2014, Silva et al. 2016, Mezzonato-Pires et al. 2017).
Information on the flora of Maranhão, which is composed of representatives from the Amazon, Cerrado, and Caatinga biomes, is still meager and fragmented; most studies concern local floristics and/or ethnobotany (Silva et al. 2016).This is justified due to the wide variety of environments in Maranhão, which include cer-rados, babassu-palm forest formations, and large forests.According to Rizzini (1997), Maranhão is located in a region of transition between the Cerrado and the Amazon rainforest, but it also has some elements of the Caatinga biome.In that sense, babassu-palm forests are vegetation complexes that form an ecotone between those areas, in agreement with anthropic conditions and associated with capoeira (secondary) vegetation.
We contribute to the knowledge on the Passifloraceae s.s. by reporting the first known occurrences of 3 species from Maranhão state, northeastern Brazil.

Methods
We made expeditions in Maranhão state to develop a list of the Flora of Maranhão, collecting species at various sites in the municipalities of Caxias, Codó (eastern Maranhão) and Mirador (at Mirador State Park, southern Maranhão).Collected specimens were deposited in HABIT herbarium (Maranhão State University, Caxias Campus, Caxias, Brazil), and HENAC herbarium (Federal University of Maranhão, Codó Campus, Brazil).Additional specimens were located using the virtual online database speciesLink (http://splink.cria.org.br/).
We present a brief morphological description of the species and include also photographs, comments, and a map of their distribution in Maranhão.The Extent of Occurrence (EOO) and Area of Occupancy (AOO) were calculated using the Geospatial Conservation Assessment Tool GeoCAT (2017).The conservation status of taxa was assessed following the IUCN (2017) criteria.

Examined
We observed this species in the interiors of forests, at sites with dense vegetation, and in wet, shady areas.This is the first report of this species to northeastern Brazil.

Discussion
Plant cover in the sites where we collected these species is composed predominantly of Cerrado vegetation.In municipalities of Caxias and Codó, there are also babassu-palm forests and gallery forests along several rivers that cut through the region.In Mirador State Park, several physiognomies occur, such as Cerrado, Cerradão, Veredas, and riparian forests formed mainly by buriti palms.The park contains springs of the Itapecuru river, one of the major rivers in Maranhão state.Our other collection sites (São Luís and Araióses municipalities) have typical coastal vegetation of Restinga and mangroves; Carolina municipality, on the other hand, is covered by Cerrado vegetation, as it is located on a typical plateau.
Passiflora picturata is widely distributed across the Brazilian states (Fig. 3) of Acre, Rondônia, Roraima, Pará, Piauí, Ceará, Alagoas and São Paulo (Cervi 1997, SpeciesLink 2017).It also occurs in Colombia and Suriname.Individuals are usually found in the interior and on the edges of primary and secondary forests (Cervi 1997).
Passiflora vespertilio is a typical species from the Amazon rainforest, occurring in French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, and Brazil.In Brazil (Fig. 4), the species occurs in the states of Acre, Amazonas, Rondônia, Mato Grosso, Pará, and Amapá, in rainforest vegetation under fluvial influence, such as lowland and igapó forests, as well as in nonflooded vegetation (Milward-de-Azevedo et al. 2012).

Figure 3 .
Figure 3. Geographical distribution of Passiflora picturata in Brazilian territory.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Geographical distribution of Passiflora cincinnata in Brazilian territory.