can take -6 °C and that the USDA hardiness zone is 9b. Conservation Noblick, writing for the IUCN in 1998, mentioned high seed predation by 'bean weevils' as a possible threat to the species, and due to this and its limited range classified it as 'vulnerable'. In 2012 the Centro Nacional de Conservação da Flora rated the conservation status for Brazil as 'endangered', primarily due to an already restricted distribution and habitat loss due to the many decades of ongoing mining and the pressure of agricultural expansion, as well as the gathering of fruit by local people and tourists, and a high juvenile mortality (see ecology section above). In a 2017 dissertation by Marcelo Piske Eslabão he advocates considering the species as 'critically endangered' as the IUCN categories B1ab(i, ii, iii) and B2ab(i, ii, iii) applied, although Eslabão does not adequately explain which criteria exactly applies, as some clearly do not (B1 (EOO (see distribution section above) below 100 km2) and B2 (AOO below 10 km2). This would likely mean that the population was estimated to have declined by 90% or more within 10 years or 3 generations, in which a number of other qualifications might apply, such as an observed decrease in quality of habitat, and/or estimated AOO or EOO. Eslabão elaborates that intense overexploitation of the leaves for broom construction is causing very apparent alterations and excessive mortality in many populations. Martins also relates how the continual leaf extraction results in reduced plant size and an altered look to the palms. Studies by Guilherme et al. illustrate how continued leaf extraction can result in a significantly lower proportion of the palms flowering and thus reproducing, and much later fruit maturation, and that leaf production in populations under high leaf extraction pressure is reduced. Much of the region in which it grows has been converted to use for agricultural activities such as cattle, corn, soybean and increasingly sugar cane. The palm groves also show ecological disturbances in the form of infestation by invasive grasses and fires. A portion of the population is protected within the confines of a military reservation (41º BIMTZ), although it does not occur in any official conservation areas. References purpurascens Endemic flora of Brazil Flora of the Cerrado Flora of Goiás Vulnerable flora of South America Taxonomy articles created by Polbot