Declining Cycads: one is the loneliest number

September 16, 2011 11:02 AM

Cycads are an odd bunch of plants. Abundant in the Jurassic period, these old-timers have not evolved much, and are either all male or all female (dioecious), where the the overwhelming majority of plant species are now cosexual (hermaphroditic or monoecious). Some of these plants are still prolific, but there are some rather solitary specimens, including Encephalartos woodii, the loneliest plant in the world.

John Medley Wood's discovery may now be the only solo cycad, but there are other cycads that are reduced to less than ten stems, often all males. Some, like E. woodii, are prolific by means of basal suckers or offsets. Though E. woodii may be the most sought-after cycad, thereare possibly as many as 500 clone specimens existing as of 2002.

Here are some more lonely cycads:

* Encephalartos brevifoliolatus, the Escarpment Cycad, is reduced to five to seven males, and the conservation official removed the last wild stems in 2004 to save them from poachers.

* Ceratozamia euryphyllidia is limited to a possible 30 wild species in a tropical region of Veracruz, Mexico.

* Zamia montana is possibly extinct in the wild, but available through artificial cultivation.

Cycads (specifically their toxic seeds) previously: Lytico-Bodig, the mysterious killer of Guam

posted by filthy light thief (19 comments total)

Oh god that illustration at the bottom of the NPR link is going to make me cry.
posted by griphus at 11:10 AM on September 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

Me too, particularly if it is included in a future edition of Lord of the Rings as a depiction of an ent.
posted by Wolfdog at 11:14 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

That ent drawing is hilarious. He looks like a bummed out Jimmy Buffett tropical beach bum ent. It looks like he just knocked over the last bottle of ent-draught and he now can't make any more frozen ent-aritas.
posted by nathancaswell at 11:15 AM on September 16, 2011 [6 favorites]

Oliver Sacks has a thing for Cycads, and has even written (part of a) book on them (I think your link to the previous "mysterious killer of Guam" references this).

I myself lived within biking distance of a 1,000 year-old cycad in Japan that is much-beloved by the locals.

Great post!!!
posted by KokuRyu at 11:17 AM on September 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

Cool post, thanks. Next time I come across a coontie in the woods (which is pretty much every time I enter the woods), I'll stop and share a moment of silence for poor, lonely Woodii.
posted by Gator at 11:22 AM on September 16, 2011

Island of the Colorblind was a great book, and a memorable part is when Sacks describes having to resist the desire to taste for himself a chip made from cycad seed, the suspected cause of lytico-bodig.
posted by danny the boy at 11:36 AM on September 16, 2011

This is a sad way to give the lie to Judith Wright.

The Cycads

Their smooth dark flames flicker at time's own root.
Round them the rising forests of the years
alter the climates of forgotten earth
and silt with leaves the strata of first birth.

Only the antique cycads sullenly
keep the old bargain life has long since broken;
and, cursed by age, through each chill century
they watch the shrunken moon, but never die,

for time forgets the promise he once made,
and change forgets that they are left alone.
Among the complicated birds and flowers
they seem a generation carved in stone.

Leaning together, down those gulfs they stare
over whose darkness dance the brilliant birds
that cry in air one moment, and are gone;
and with their countless suns the years spin on.

Take their cold seed and set it in the mind,
and its slow root will lengthen deep and deep
till, following, you cling on the last ledge
over the unthinkable, unfathomed edge
beyond which man remembers only sleep.

posted by zamboni at 11:37 AM on September 16, 2011 [8 favorites]

The title of this post should have been "woodii is the loneliest number"
posted by DU at 11:39 AM on September 16, 2011

Would it be possible to clone a female member of the species by genetic manipulation, or does the fact that we only have access to one sex restrict our knowledge of what the female genome looks like?
posted by invitapriore at 11:54 AM on September 16, 2011

Is it an XY=male, or XX=male species? If XY then, in theory, one day we could duplicate it's X chromosome and clone up a female. Not something we can accomplish today, but it shouldn't be too far off.
posted by sotonohito at 11:55 AM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

I always troll people who say they want to eat a "paleo diet" by telling them that they have to eat some cycads. Indeed, there is archaeological evidence for early human cycad consumption, which was actually indicative of major technological advances since almost all cycads require extensive processing to render them non-toxic. Humans had carved out a niche without many competitors. It was also quite valuable from a dietary perspective since it allowed humans more access to carbohydrates, an extremely important resource in a world of mostly lean game, in order to prevent protein poisoning. Modern foragers continue to consume cycads, but some have died from improperly processing and there is some evidence that even with processing there are enough toxins to cause health problems in the long term.
posted by melissam at 11:55 AM on September 16, 2011 [4 favorites]

Great post! Love learning intresting things instead of drivel.
posted by bjgeiger at 12:02 PM on September 16, 2011

sotonohito: the males are hetero-, so yeah, it might be possible to clone a female plant?
posted by hattifattener at 12:14 PM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

Totally fascinating! I imagine tuataras hanging out with cycads.
posted by snofoam at 12:25 PM on September 16, 2011

sotonohito, the 500 clones link has more information:

There being no female plant, seed is out of the question, but there are a few projects underway to remedy the situation. There is still the hope that a female plant is in the Ngoye forest somewhere and expeditions in that area always keep a look out for one. The most promising project is the crossing of Encephalartos woodii with its closest relative Encephalartos natalensis, and crossing the offspring with Encephalartos woodii again with the result that each successive generation is more and more Encephalartos woodii. There is also the remote possibility that a spontaneous sex change will occur in one of the male plants. Sex reversal has been observed in a few cases involving other species and once the process is more fully understood, it could be induced in an Encephalartos woodii plant.

Otherwise, there's mucking around with genes, as there are many species in the Encephalartos genus to use as example stock.
posted by filthy light thief at 2:00 PM on September 16, 2011

To the people saying that the X chromosome could be duplicated to produce a female 'clone,' that might be impossible, if not really really hard. The precise organization of the cloned "daughter's" DNA would have to be met. In a sci-fi future, re genetic sequence could certainly be duplicated. It would be very hard to duplicate the "epigenetic" proteins which regulate the expression of female genes versus male genes, or of an old plant versus a young one. That is to say, before birth, the genome of an organism is mucked up with tons of proteins that modify how its genes are regulated. There are different proteins initially present on a female genome compared to a male genome, and different proteins on an adult genome versus a seed genome. Not only would it be really hard to change those proteins on the physical DNA, but also we wouldn't even *know* what the young female DNA should look like - the only template would be potentially very different old male DNA.
posted by Buckt at 2:50 PM on September 16, 2011 [2 favorites]

Lost the Ent wives
posted by the noob at 4:55 PM on September 16, 2011 [5 favorites]

Indeed, there is archaeological evidence for early human cycad consumption

Yup, Aboriginal Australians ate them for many thousands of years. The treatments to make them edible though seems a bit hit and miss to me, I wouldn't have wanted to be one of the early experimenters!
posted by smoke at 5:38 PM on September 16, 2011 [1 favorite]

This post is lovely and taught me things I did not know, but also made me sad.

Fantastic!
posted by winna at 10:10 PM on September 16, 2011