Definition: Open shrubland and savanna in the north of Brazil and in Colombia and Venezuela, with low, sparse vegetation growing on sandy soils mostly within terra firme land in the Amazon. It can be of the ‘forested’ type, similar to a gallery forest, ‘wooded’ where the trees are shorter, and finally ‘grassy-woody’, where it occurs in wet plains near rivers and lakes. Amongst the more frequent plant families are the Arecaceae, Bromeliaceae, Clusiaceae, Humiriaceae, Marantaceae, Meliaceae and Rapateaceae.
Definition: Atlantic Coast Restingas, ecoregion. Vegetation complex ocurring in the seaside lowlands of Brazil, establishing over sea deposits of sandy sediment. It comprises open or scrubby profiles nearer the beaches, while inland it is forms tall forests.
Definition: Of plant duration, a plant whose life span ends within one year after germination, e.g. a winter annual germinating in the autumn and flowering in the spring (esp. in Mediterranean climates), approximately synonymous to therophyte, c.f. biennial, ephemeral, perennial, c.f. also of flowering with respect to architecture, hapaxanthic, monocarpic, pleonanthic.
