Philcoxia bahiensis is a rare plant species in the Plantaginaceae

Plantaginaceae

Plantaginaceae Juss. or plantain family, are a family of flowering plants in the order Lamiales. The type genus is Plantago L..In older classifications it used to be the only family of the order Plantaginales, but numerous phylogenetic studies, summarized by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group, have...

 that is endemic to the Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

ian state of Bahia

Bahia

Bahia is one of the 26 states of Brazil, and is located in the northeastern part of the country on the Atlantic coast. It is the fourth most populous Brazilian state after São Paulo, Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro, and the fifth-largest in size...

. It was first discovered collected by a local resident, Wilson Ganev, in August 1992 from the Serra do Atalho in the Piatã

Piatã, Bahia

Piatã is a municipality in the state of Bahia in Brazil. The population in 2003 is 19,320 and the area is 1,513.8 km² The elevation is 1,268 m.-External links:*http://www.citybrazil.com.br/ba/piata/...

 municipality. That collection was sent to Kew Gardens

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to as Kew Gardens, is 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. "The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" and the brand name "Kew" are also used as umbrella terms for the institution that runs...

 for naming. Because of its placentation

Placentation

In biology, placentation refers to the formation, type and structure, or arrangement of placentas. The function of placentation is to transfer nutrients from maternal tissue to a growing embryo...

, the specimen was determined to be a member of the Scrophulariaceae (later Plantaginaceae sensu APG II) despite its appearance close to that of terrestrial Utricularia. Material of this specimen had been sent to Vinícius Souza, who was working on the Scrophulariaceae

Scrophulariaceae

Scrophulariaceae, the figwort family, are a family of flowering plants. The plants are annual or perennial herbs with flowers with bilateral or rarely radial symmetry. Members of the Scrophulariaceae have a cosmopolitan distribution, with the majority found in temperate areas, including...

 of Brazil. It was then formally described in 2000 as a new species.

Its habitat consists of deep white sand in the midst of cerrado

Cerrado

The Cerrado, is a vast tropical savanna ecoregion of Brazil, particularly in the states of Gioas and Minas Gerais...

 vegetation at an elevation

Elevation

The elevation of a geographic location is its height above a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface ....

 between 800 and 1450 m. Initial descriptions of the genus included suspicions that the plethora of stalked capitate glands on the upper surfaces of leaves was an indication that these species may be carnivorous

Carnivorous plant

Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic...

.