Seedlings ofMiconia albicans(Sw.) Triana, an aluminum‐accumulating shrub, which grow naturally on acid latosols of the cerrado region of central Brazil, were grown in a strongly acid dystrophic soil, a strongly acid gallery forest soil and a calcareous soil in a pot culture experiment. The seedlings grew better in the fertile acid soil than in the dystrophic soil. They failed to grow in the calcareous soil, producing only a single pair of yellowed, necrotic leaves with low Al concentration after the emergence of a first pair of green leaves. Plants with chlo‐rotic leaves, transplanted from the calcareous to the acid soils, showed complete recovery of chlorotic leaves and a concomitant increase in the Al concentration in leaves.