Two great cycads

[PalmsZA]

Hi all

I paid a visit to our local gardens last Sunday. Thought I would share these to pics of two remarkable plants......

E.woodii, notice the chap having a snooze to the right of the plant for scale.

E.natalensis, nice trunk shape, needs a brace now to keep it upright.

Cheers

Dennis

[Gileno Machado]

Incredible E. woodii, Dennis...That's an iconic Cycad !

Any more pictures of the garden?

Cheers

[rozpalm]

Wow!

[PalmsZA]

Hi Guys

Ah G, you are in luck.....some more.

Nice cone (its a boy)

E.horridus?

Edited June 4, 2009 by PalmsZA

[PalmsZA]

South African blues

Another cone

A huge one-maybe E.altensteinii?

[Kris]

Very nice visuals & i love it !

Love,

Kris

[Gileno Machado]

[rozpalm]

Very cool pictures! Keep the coming!

[ghar41]

AAAAhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! I will visit Durban someday. Wow, I just looked at these pictures again, they are incredible.

[MattyB]

Woah! Does that woodii have multiple heads?

[ghar41]

Some may not be familiar with the background of this incredibly rare (upon its discovery) plant. The first picture is of one of the original offsets (there were four), collected and transplanted by John Medley Wood from the last remaining Encephalartos woodii (a male) plant left on Earth.

No female has ever been found.

http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantefg/encephwoodii.htm

[PalmsZA]

Hi again all

Thanks for the comments.

Some more cycad pics for you…

The garden is full of cycads and I have often wondered how many exactly there are planted out.

Visit the bot gardens website http://www.durbanbotanicgardens.org.za/

Glenn: I reckon the four big plants in that area of the garden are the original plants collected. I really need to get back there soon and take someone with me to show the scale of these beautiful cycads. I don’t have a pic of the forth for some reason. When you get here Glenn I will give you the “grand” tour!

This E.woodii is also a multi head monster

This woodii appears to be a single stem from the pics-cant remember exactly at the mo.

Another group of blues….

Regards,

Dennis

[Walter John]

Ah Dennis, these are spectacular. So good to see these great cycads being shown respect.

Thank you very much for posting,

um....any more ?

[Kris]

Dear Dennis

Lovely visuals,and those images are going to keep sleepless for a long time !

Thanks & Love,

Kris

[GeneAZ]

Hi again all

Thanks for the comments.

Some more cycad pics for you…

The garden is full of cycads and I have often wondered how many exactly there are planted out.

Visit the bot gardens website http://www.durbanbotanicgardens.org.za/

Glenn: I reckon the four big plants in that area of the garden are the original plants collected. I really need to get back there soon and take someone with me to show the scale of these beautiful cycads. I don’t have a pic of the forth for some reason. When you get here Glenn I will give you the “grand” tour!

This E.woodii is also a multi head monster

This woodii appears to be a single stem from the pics-cant remember exactly at the mo.

Another group of blues….

Regards,

Dennis

[GeneAZ]

I have read that the fourth and last remaining stem -- the largest -- was removed from the wild before 1910 and re-established in the Durban garden with the other three main stems. Then I believe in the '70s it was transplanted again but DIED as a result of the transplant shock. So I believe only three of the original stems survive in the garden, plus some of the offsets produced over the years.

I understand when the first two stems were originally moved to the Durban garden, some offsets were removed and distributed variously. At least one went to Kew in England and another went to a private garden of someone named Maurice Evans there in SA, which is a bit mysterious to me. This Evans plant should be among the largest there in SA and really should be documented by someone if it has survived all these years. That sounds like an interesting research and field trip for you SA cycad lovers.

Gene