A new Dyckia species, closely related to D. goiana L.B. Sm. was found by the first author in the Municipality of Piracanjuba, in the South of Goias at an elevation of 650 meters in November 1978. It was found again and collected in 1994 and has since been cultivated in his collection. An herbarium specimen was preserved in 2011 using one of the cultivated plants, so after many years we are finally able to describe and illustrate this new species below.

Dyckia piracanjubensis Esteves & Gouda sp. nov. (Figs. 1-9.)

This new species is closely related to Dyckia goiana L.B. Smith (1967), differing by its smaller stature, flowering 1.8-2 m tall (vs. to 2.5 m), shorter leaf blades (to 53 cm vs. ca. 80 cm long), longer and thinner peduncle (ca.100 cm x 9 mm vs. ca. 80 cm x 17 mm), inflorescence simple (vs. laxly compound, with up to 8 suberect lateral branches), fertile part ca. 72 cm long (vs. over 1 m long), flowers subsessile to short pedicellate (vs. pedicel distinct, stout, to 4 mm long), the basal ones laxly arranged, to densely arranged toward the inflorescence apex (flowers remote in most parts of the inflorescence).

Type: BRAZIL. Municipality of Piracanjuba, in the south of Goias state. The new species occurs in isolated outcrops of soft limestone rocks, in scattered habitats along the Piracanjuba River basin. Elev. 650 meters. July 1994. Ex cult., fl. in November 2011, E. Esteves Pereira E-355 (holotype UFG 50537).

Plant rupicolous, growing as solitary rosettes or in dense clumps, flowering 1.8-2 m tall; rosette ca. 67 cm in diameter; stem ca. 17 cm long, to 6.5 cm in diameter, hidden by the imbricate leaf sheaths. Leaves about 40 (living); sheaths: 2.5-3.2 cm long, ca. 3.7 cm wide, succulent, lustrous on both sides, white at base, from the middle to distal end dark-honey colored, margins spinose; blades the outer spreading, the inner ones suberect to upward-secund, sublinear-triangular, pale green to brownish-green, finely nerved, very densely canescent lepidote especially abaxially and adaxially toward the base, becoming glabrescent distally, 35-53 cm long, ca. 3 cm wide at the base, strongly canaliculate except for the nearly flat base, margins serrate, long attenuate, tapering to a rigid dark-brown, flat, glossy, pungent tip, spines uncinate, antrorse except for the distal ones, the basal ones ca. 3.5 mm long, gradually becoming smaller toward the apex, 3-14 mm apart, becoming brown from a green base. Inflorescence simple, erect; rachis ca. 72 cm long, ca. 6 mm in diameter at the base and tapering to ca. 1.8 mm distally, yellowish-green (dark-) rose to red at the end of anthesis, cinereous-whitish lepidote, trichomes not totally obscuring color of the rachis; peduncle straight to slightly sinuous, ca. 100 cm long, 6-9 mm in diameter near the base, pale-green or brownish-green, sparsely covered by cinereous trichomes, glabrescent with age, internodes 31-62 mm; peduncle bracts the basal ones foliaceous, linear-lanceolate, carinate, margins serrate, the lower ca. 9.5 cm long, gradually reducing in size and soon shorter...