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Cycads in South Africa. Cycads / ˈ s aɪ k æ d z / are seed plants that typically have a stout and woody trunk with a crown of large, hard, stiff, evergreen and (usually) pinnate leaves. The species are dioecious, that is, individual plants of a species are either male or female. Cycads vary in size from having trunks only a few centimeters ...
The leaves can be completely lost during cold periods, with the plant lying dormant in its tuberous root system, allowing this cycad to be relatively cold hardy. The plant can survive up to USDA region 8b (10° to 20°F). The stems and leaves regenerate after the cold period subsides with full foliage. [8] [9]
Z. picta is even more distinctive, being the only truly variegated cycad (having whitish/yellow speckles on the leaves). [7] Like all Zamiaceae, Zamia plants have "coralloid" (coral-shaped) roots which host nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria. Stems are 3 to 25 centimetres (1.2 to 9.8 in) in diameter, and when arborial, up to 5 metres (16 ft) tall.
While there are more than 200 species of cycads, only one is native to Florida, and only a couple are popular landscaping plants in our area.
The plant produces a rosette of fronds each year, there being six rosettes at any given time, stacked one above the other. As the newest matures, the lowest one dies back. [ 3 ] The cylindrical cones are some of the largest of all cycad cones, rivalled only by Encephalartos transvenosus . [ 4 ]
Cycads are long-lived and slow-growing, with slow recruitment and population turnover. [9] All cycads possess 'coralloid' (meaning coral-like) roots. These roots contain symbiotic cyanobacteria that fix gaseous nitrogen from the atmosphere and provide essential nitrogenous compounds to the plant. This can be a great advantage, as many cycads ...
Including the leaves, the whole plant typically grows to 1.3 m tall with a width of about 2 m. Leaflets. The leaves radiate from the center of the trunk; each leaf is 50–150 cm long with a petiole 15–30 cm long, and 6-12 pairs of extremely stiff, pubescent (fuzzy) green leaflets. These leaflets grow 8–20 cm long and 3–5 cm wide.
A specimen of L. hopei is known as the tallest living cycad at 17.5 m tall. These cycads are generally unbranched, tall, and with persistent leaf bases. They are easily cultivated as ornamental plants and are relatively cold hardy; L. peroffskyana was first described by a specimen grown at Saint Petersburg Botanical Garden in 1857.