Tip of the Week – Worlds Rarest Cycads
This month we have the privilege of introducing you to some of the rarest Cycads in the world today & then showing you some on video. Read about how rare and special these plants are. These are not only rare ancient plants but plants of great beauty and botanical interest. Often available at our nursery.
Encephalartos nubimontanus ..Blue Form
Now extinct in the wild.
Native to one small area near Msinga South Africa. An estimated 100-200 matured plants are left in the wild & declining.
From a solitary valley in Western Uganda in Africa it is on the highest category of their Endangered Classifications.
This is a very rare silver-blue foliaged cycad from Transvaal South Africa.
About Cycads
Cycads are some of the oldest plants still living on the planet tracing back to the ancient Mesezoic period some 170 million years ago! Too tough for us but back in those hard to imagine days they were tasty food for the Dinosaurs walking the forests. There are only 347 living species in only 11 genera….. many of them rare and endangered or completely gone in their native habitat. Cycads are unrelated to any other living group of plants. Due to their rarity in the wild.. they are one of the most collectable of the valuable plants. These plants will look amazing in any rock garden and will fit in almost any landscape design ideas.
World Distribution
Cycads occur in most numbers on the continents of Africa, Australia.New Guinea and South America but also occur in Central America, China, India Indonesia and the Caribbean Island, Madagascar & some Pacific Islands.
Botany
The eleven genera of Cycads are; Bowenia, Ceratozamia, Chigua, Cycas, Dioon, Encephalartos, Lepidozamia, Macrozamai, Microcycas, Strangeria and Zamia.
