The spider cycad

Species name: Cycas maconochiei

Common name: none; sometimes confused with Cycas revoluta

Location: Dominican Republic

This species of cycad, often confused with the sago cycad/sago palm (which you can read all about HERE), is native to the northernmost peninsulas in Australia but are now commonly planted in tropical areas as an ornamental species. It is slightly more hardy and tolerant of storms than the sago cycad, and grows significantly faster. It is also easier to propagate from seed, which means there is less of a stress on the population due to poaching this plant from the wild. Until a few decades ago, this plant was rarely seen outside of Australia.

One of the distinguishing characteristics of this cycad is the "growth rings" it produces on the outside of the trunk. The white cone-like fleshy structure on the inside of the fronds is not actually a cone (as I originally thought) but a layer of fronds that are maturing and will eventually unfurl like fern fronds. This is different than many other species of cycads which only develop one frond at a time. The layer of growth in one year appears like a smooth band around the trunk of the cycad, with the leftover protective sheathes for the developing fronds at the beginning of the growth layer. This layer has been reported up to eight inches thick if growth conditions are ideal! For a cycad, that's an enormous amount of growth (for an angiosperm tree like a maple, it would be no big deal), considering that some species only grow an inch or two a year...

Other than the ornamental value, this plant has very little alternate use to humans. Spiders, however, seem to love this plant. The third picture doesn't have the lens covered in sunscreen and hence the seemingly "fogginess" of the image (I can't say the same for a few other images...). What you can actually see on the inside of the fronds is a massive spider web (probably, actually, a whole community of spider webs). This was on the inside of almost every cycad of this species I looked at, so there might be something more to it than just chance. Someone needs to look at the diversity of spiders in these cycads and whether or not they're native to Australia (and hence were brought over somehow with the cycads themselves), or whether Dominican spiders have started adapting to use this species as an ideal habitat.

The Cardboard (non-palm) Cycad

Species name: Zamia furfuracea

Common name: cardboard cycad

Location: UWO Greenhouse

The cardboard cycad (also called the cardboard palm, but like with the sago palm it's not even remotely related to a true palm) is native to the Veracruz region in Mexico and was once a dominant species across much of the Caribbean region. Now, it is listed on the IUCN Red List as vulnerable, the category listing before becoming endangered. Due to habitat loss and climate change, this species will more than likely go extinct in the wild in the next few generations if an intense conservation effort is not started.

Unlike the last cycad that I featured on my blog, the sago cycad (which you can read all about HERE), the trunk of this species almost always grows underground. It could almost be called a rhizome, except it grows down from the Earth's surface as the rest of the plant grows upwards. If the cycad is grown in a pot like this one is, except for a dense, woody area at the soil surface there is no stem at all. Incredibly unusual, especially for a cycad! Another really neat feature about this plant is the direction of the leaflets in full sun versus in the shade. Like many other shade-tolerant species, the cardboard cycad is very sensitive to full sunlight and can get a sunburn very quickly. This species has evolved a mechanism to prevent sunburn by orienting its leaflets to minimize the surface area that comes in direct contact with sunlight. In full sun, the leaflets point straight up to the ski so that only the edges of the leaf are in full sun. The rest of the leaflet absorbs light as it filters down through the leaves. In the shade, the leaflets are completely horizontal to absorb as much of the filtered light as possible. On the same leaf, you will probably find leaflets oriented horizontally, vertically, and all angles in between!

If you decide to purchase one of these plants from a greenhouse (either as an indoor tropical plant or as an outdoor landscaping plant), please make sure you do your due diligence and find out how that particular plant was grown. The only way of propagating this species is via seeds (the plant cannot tolerating being propagated by cuttings or offshoots of the main stem), and this is incredibly difficult to achieve in a greenhouse. For this reason, many young Zamia plants are hunted in the wild every year to support the ornamental plant industry. This needs to stop if we want to protect this species' wild populations!

Like the sago cycad, the cardboard cycad is incredibly toxic to humans, and consumption of any part of the plant, raw or cooked, can lead to death via kidney and liver failure. As there is no known treatment for cardboard cycad poisoning, if you decide to tempt fate by eating a seed, you will regret your actions in due time. If you have children or pets, this plant is not recommended as a garden or indoor plant under any circumstances (it readily produces seeds in cultivation). Also take care when gardening around this plant or walking around in areas where this plant grows naturally; the spines on the leaf petioles are incredibly sharp and contain a drop of toxin at the tips. Touching the spines won't do anything since it can't be absorbed through the skin, but if it breaks the skin you will get very, very sick (although luckily death is unlikely). This plant is not to be messed with!

The Sago (non-palm) Cycad

Species name: Cycas revoluta

Common name: sago palm, sago cycad

Location: UWO Greenhouse

The sago palm (like quite a few of the common  names recently featured on my blog, this one is also misleading; it is not a true palm) is native to Japan, where it has existed since the time of the dinosaurs. In fact, ferns, lycophytes and cycads were some of the dominant vegetation during the Jurassic period. The cycads, unlike the lycophytes and the ferns, remain almost unchanged today from their ancestors (ferns and lycophytes are much smaller than they used to be!). There are an estimated 305 species of cycad still alive today (an estimated 1,000-2,500 species once existed), and unfortunately almost all of them are on the IUCN Red List of near-threatened, threatened, endangered, or critically endangered species. All cycads are very long-lived (some estimated based on their height to be over 1,000 years old), but grow very, very slowly. The tallest cycads in the world are in the southern half of the African continent, and can be up to 6 meters tall (most cycads rarely reach a height of 2 meters before succumbing).

As we all know, poaching is a huge problem in many countries in Africa, with rhinos being hunted to near-extinction for their horns, and elephants being hunted for their tusks. While both of these activities have been illegal (according to local and international laws) for quite a while, they still occur often enough to have anti-poaching officers in all national parks in Africa that carry machine guns; their orders are shoot first, ask questions second. What I found absolutely mind-boggling is that many poachers in South Africa aren't after big game animals; they're after cycads. With the recent boom of very, very rich people in different countries in Africa, each of them wants to make a special statement in their choice of landscaping around their homes. Large, mature cycads are hunted in the wild, all of their foliage stripped off so that it's nearly impossible to determine species, let alone what group of plants it belongs to, then shipped off to their new destination. Once dug into the ground, they will readily root and (albeit slowly) regrow their leaves. Depending on the species, cycads can be sold on the black market for up to USD$30,000 each! There are now anti-poaching officers who are responsible for ensuring cycads are not being actively hunted in the wild; they parole the national parks in South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique, Kenya and Namibia just like big game officers. I'm proud of the stance they're taking to protect their native and endangered species!

Despite this species being near-threatened in the wild, it occurs in huge numbers in cultivation, grown for ornamental purposes and also for the starch in the centre of the stem (which, when extracted, is called sago). Once the starch is washed (the stem tissues of the sago palm contain various toxins, so the starch must be washed before it can be consumed), it is processed into its various forms and shipped out to those who use it. When rolled into small balls, it is used interchangeably with tapioca; when you drink bubble tea you just might have sago bubbles instead of real tapioca bubbles! The small sago beads are also used to make sago pudding, which I hear is quite good (I've never had an opportunity to try it; it's on my "to do" list!).

If you have a sago cycad (I like this name much better than sago palm; it better reflects the actual plant!) in your back yard and think it would be a fun thing to use as a food source, I strongly urge you to reconsider. Leave the starch extraction to the experts. Consumption of improperly prepared starch from the stems of cycads (and consumption of their seeds, which you should NEVER do) has led to outbreaks of a Parkinson-like disease in Guam (and possibly other Southeast Asian countries), which will eventually lead to death. Cycads are dinosaurs of the plant world, we should make sure we treat them with the respect they deserve!