Macaé

Macaé (Portuguese pronunciation: [mɐkɐˈɛ]) is a municipality located in the Brazilian state of Rio de Janeiro, 180 km northeast of the state capital. Its population was recorded as 206,748 in 2010 and its municipality covers an area of 1,216 km².

Macaé is generally considered to be the centre of the Brazilian offshore petroleum industry and it is often referred to as "Cidade do Petróleo" ("City of Petroleum"). The Brazilian state-controlled oil company Petrobras has many facilities within the town. Macaé is one of the fastest-growing cities in Brazil, with a growth of 600% within the last 10 years.Benedito Lacerda Airport is served by scheduled flights and concentrates operations to off-shore platforms.

Other economic activities in the city include tourism and fishing. These two sectors were very important for the city's revenues before the 1980s. The city has a growing reputation for high-quality technical education and training.

Although the city has some touristic potential, the lack of investiments on this area makes its growth to be very small. Its most famous beaches are Cavaleiros and Pecado. The interior of the municipality has small rural towns such as Sana and Frade.

Lepidium meyenii

Lepidium meyenii (maca) is an herbaceous biennial plant of the crucifer family native to the high Andes of Peru. It was found at the Meseta of BomBom close to Junin Lake in the Andes. It is grown for its fleshy hypocotyl (a fused hypocotyl and taproot), which is used as a root vegetable and a medicinal herb. Its Spanish and Quechua names include maca-maca, maino, ayak chichira, and ayak willku.

Botanical characteristics

The first westerner to describe this species was Gerhard Walpers who named it Lepidium meyenii in 1843. In the 1990s, Gloria Chacon made a further distinction of different species. She considered the widely cultivated natural maca of today to be a newer domesticated species, L. peruvianum. Most botanists today doubt this distinction, however, and continue to call the cultivated maca L. meyenii. The Latin name recognized by the USDA also continues to be Lepidium meyenii. Debate is a still ongoing about the correct nomenclature and whether the distinction between meyenii and peruvianum is botanically correct.

MACA

MACA or maca can mean:

Places

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MACA

See also