[4] Sidney Fredrick Glassman first described this species in 1967 from a specimen collected by William Andrew Archer (no.

[5] Among the many characters Odoardo Beccari used to distinguish the genus Butia from Syagrus in 1916, Glassman considered the most important to be the three seeds or locules in fruit, the presence of spines along the margins of the petiole, and the smooth rather than plicate spathes.

The shape of the 1.6-2cm x 1.5-1.7cm fruit is an elongated ellipsoid, yellowish-green to purplish-green in colour at maturity, and with yellow flesh which tastes sweet and sour.

[2][7] According to Glassman in 1979, this taxon can easily be distinguished from other acaulescent species of Butia, such as B. arenicola and (sometimes) B. paraguayensis, by its petiole margins lacking teeth, and from B. microspadix, which also lacks teeth, by the hairless spathes, which are covered in dark brown hairs in B.

[4] It is found in 50cm high grasses together with the palm species Syagrus comosa, S. flexuosa, S. petraea, Allagoptera campestris (somewhat rarely), and A. leucocalyx in Fazenda Água Limpa in the Federal District.

This area has an elevation of 1,100m and an annual rainfall of 1,600mm, a dry season in the winter from July to September, in latosol soil with a relatively high amount of aluminium oxides.

[3] By 2011 it was grown by Harri Lorenzi, a senior Brazilian botanist specialised in palms, in his Plantarum institute.

[4] In 2004 the Secretaria de Estado do Meio Ambiente of the state of São Paulo rated the species as 'Vulnerable' (SMA no.

In 2012 the conservation status was evaluated as 'least concern' by the Centro Nacional de Conservação da Flora in Brazil.