Cycas debaoensis

[Al in Kona]

The below Cycas debaoensis I grew from a few seed purchased from RPS a few years back.  Here is what it looks like today.  Does it appear to really be C. debaoensis or perhaps some other related species?  Perhaps those of you who have reasonably good knowledge on what the true spies should look like can comment on this.  All input appreciated.

[Al in Kona]

A close up of one leaf on my Cycas (debaoensis?)

[daxin]

I saw 10-15 large seedlings of Cycas debaoensis in 5g containers (3"-4" caudex) last year in a nursery in Fallbrook, CA. There were great variations among them in terms of leaf pattern and how bi-pinnate the leaflets are. Some of them just look like yours. I ended up picking a smaller one with a nice leaf pattern, of which a photo is attached below.

[RainForestt Robert]

Can't say if that is the real deal or not Al, but it is spectacular!

Robert

[cycadjungle]

You have the real thing. It is hard to explain to someone else, but in the  future you will see what I'm talking about. Each time you get new leaves, take a picture of them just like you have just done. Each set of new leaves can make this plant appear to be a diferent species to some people. Each time you get new leaves you will see more of that lateral branching of the leaflets like the plant that daxon shows in their picture. It is a very interesting plant. I have about 70 of these plants, but my largest one, which came from Willie Tang's conservation project just put out 10 foot long leaves and with the extended lateral branching I mentioned makes the one leaf over 3 feet wide now. (and will only get wider)

[Fouquieria]

Tom,

I have a couple of questions about this plant.  First, are the prices coming down on them?  Are they easy to grow and do they grow fairly fast?  How about water and shade/semi-shade?

The reason I ask is because I've been planting Encephalartos seedlings on my lower slopes where it is sunny and hot and all of them seem to be doing fine so far (1year-six months).  But on the upper slope it is shadier and slightly cooler and I can give plants more water up there.  I've already planted a Cycas thouarsii up there and it seems to be doing fine, so I was wondering about a C. debaoensis or two or perhaps if that is not appropriate, something similar.

This is in San Diego, by the way.

-Ron-

[cycadjungle]

Sounds like you have a very good place to grow them. They tolerate full sun, but I think they look much better with some shade. They ARE a micholitzii type, which have a tendancy to abort leaves when they aren't watered extra when new leaves are just coming out, but they really don't seem to need any other special care. This is becoming my new favorite species. They are growing super fast for most people. In Hawaii, they started producing cones in right around 2 years from seed, which is unheard of for anything besides zamias. The best ones that I have that are a year and a half old are already 2 inches in diameter and my 5 year old one has a stem about 9 inches in diameter and leaves that are 100 feet long, so that one has a spread of about 14 feet and is about 7 feet tall already.

Seeds were produced in the US for the first time last year. That grower sold the seeds for about a buck cheaper than the most well known source and I can see the prices of seeds at least going down from $8 to maybe $5 or $6 in the next year or so. The prices for the plants have gone down a little, but that all depends on how much you paid for yours. I think the $250 an inch price is a little out of date, where I think the same supplier has gone down to half that amount during special sales. I've seen plants with 3 foot long leaves on e-bay going for about $100 to $125, but the thing is that they grow so fast, even buying a plant that is 1 inch, will get a decent size of 3 to 4 inches in about 2 years MOL. This may not help you, but for now, I am tageting a price of about $650 for a plant that has a 5 inch stem and leaves that are already 6 or 7 feet long. This would be about half the price that they were just 2 years ago. I think there will have to be at least 10 or 20 people producing seeds here in the US before prices for plants go much lower than this. I have seen however, bare root plants coming out of Costa Rica at about $300 each, but they totally mutilate the root system to get them in which ruins the whole thing that makes them grow so fast, so that properly grown seedlings would over take them in no time.

[LJG]

cycadjungle, how can you tell it is not Cycas multipinnata? Just curious. Also, thanks for the tip on watering when flushing. I have some flushing now.  I have seen them abort and assumed some animal or something hit it when it was new and tender. Maybe it was lack of water.

Ron, the prices are dropping fast on these. I never use to see them a few years ago when I first started looking. Now you can get them at any palm specialty nursery in SD. Some still have 2005 prices however.

Also, I would not put it in full sun where you are at. My split leaf types ( I do not have Debaoensis however) tend to not like full sun. Once I get them some filtered light, they did much better. But that is the same for my Cycas thouarsii's too? Direct sun always burns them after a few days like today. My largest that has been in the ground in direct sun a while now, always seems to burn a little each year when that one heat wave hits.

PS - These split leaf type Cycas are hard to place in landscape for me. They tend to hold fewer leaves then they do in more tropical locations, so then can get lost easily in a nice, full landscape.

[Really full garden]

This is a spectacular cycas!Does anyone know if it has been tried near the coast?I grow Cycas circinalis,revoluta (varegated),cairnsiana,rumphii, and angulata and these do very well at the beach.Are there other sources for seed besides RPS ?

                                                                                                   Scott

[cycadjungle]

Woops, just found a typo, first of all, I just saw that I wrote that my plant just pushed 100 foot leaves. Hopefully everyone figured I meant 10 foot leaves.

  Ok, the difference with multipinnata is, that coming from the basically same lateral branching area are little groups of leaflets that look like little hands, where C. debaoensis have splits coming from that same branching that look like small micholitzii type splits. The look is also a little thinner where the hands are more sparse looking, and the splits on the debaoensis leaves fill in fairly uniformly.

 It can be confusing, especially because the first major batch of debaoensis seeds that were imported into the US were incorrectly called C. multipinnata. The true multipinnata is still fairly rare in cultivation, however it appears as if the real seeds were just brought into the US by the 100 this season. I can not be sure of this though, because I have not seen any of those seedlings. For me, I refused to pay $25 a seed for these seeds and would rather buy a few seedlings later on from the people who took the risk of what they would be getting. At least, chances are, those seedlings will be way cheaper than that species has been costing if you could find them, during the last 10 years. Multipinnata is also a slower growing, thinner looking plant. The leaves can get pretty tall, but they only hold a few leaves like C. bifida, and C. micholitzii, where C. debaoensis is real fast and can easily hold 15 leaves, making it really thick looking in comparison.

[LJG]

Thanks Tom. I wish C. debaoensis would hold 10 - 15. That would make it an even better plant. But here in SoCal, I never see more then a few leaves just like C. bifida and C. micholitzii. Probably just looking in the wrong gardens or at plants that are only 5 - 8 years old.

[cycadjungle]

I have 3 year old plants that are 4 inches in diameter and are holding 8 leaves each. They are at the 3 leaf per flush stage right now, so what I have in this case is the new flush, the last 3 leaf flush, and the 2 leaf flush before that. It looks like Al's plant is holding about 8 leaves and it is probably at the 2 leaf stage. When you start getting to the 5 and 6 leaf stage is when you will see the thicker plants. My Willie Tang plant is the largest and is the first batch that was ever brought into the US. There are probably about 30 of these plants in the US. I think there are probably about 5 people in California that have some of this first batch. The seeds were given to two people, one in California and one in Florida to distribute as seedlings to other people at their local level and to use the procedes to go towards his conservation project. I got mine from an auction at our local CFPACS meeting, because at that time, we were the only society to donate to Willie's project. I don't think there are any plants that are 8 years old in the US, but I think 5 years is about right.

 What you need to do is probably put a couple in more shade and water more often. I water mine, that are in pots, every other day with about 1/2 inch of irrigation and then every day when they are flushing. The keys to holding lots of leaves are watering extra and fertilizing properly so that they are producing multiple flushes each year, and hold their leaves after they are produced. Making them grow much faster has all to do with lots of long root room, along with these other two factors. It CAN be done in California as long as you don't live in the desert.

[fastfeat]

Got a friend in SoCal who offered to send me one of these he grew from seed, with 4-5 leaves, 2-3' tall.  Any special tricks for growing in SoFla? What about acclimating from a Mediterranean to hot, humid climate? Does Asian cycad scale pose a risk on this species? Thanks.

[cycadjungle]

Any time I get cycads that were grown in California, I pot them up and put them in the shade, but don't water them as much as you would think you should. It helps harden them off a little from being bare rooted. Plants coming from over there don't seem to get as much water as the ones we grow here and have a tendency to rot easier at first. Once they harden off for a few weeks I start increasing the water to what we would normally give them.

Asian scale? You bet. I have brought some of it and infected some of the debaoensis plants for my recent year long experiments (that you may be aware of but most of the people here are not) and it gets all over them pretty quick. Even if you have to worry about Asian scale, this species is well worth the time to spray or whatever way you deal with the scale. At least they grow quickly so they can grow out of an infestation easily.

[fastfeat]

(cycadjungle @ Sep. 02 2007,21:45)

QUOTE

Any time I get cycads that were grown in California, I pot them up and put them in the shade, but don't water them as much as you would think you should. It helps harden them off a little from being bare rooted. Plants coming from over there don't seem to get as much water as the ones we grow here and have a tendency to rot easier at first. Once they harden off for a few weeks I start increasing the water to what we would normally give them.

Asian scale? You bet. I have brought some of it and infected some of the debaoensis plants for my recent year long experiments (that you may be aware of but most of the people here are not) and it gets all over them pretty quick. Even if you have to worry about Asian scale, this species is well worth the time to spray or whatever way you deal with the scale. At least they grow quickly so they can grow out of an infestation easily.

CJ--

This will actually be the first cycad I'll own (I'm basically into woody stuff and a few palms). I worked with and around 'em at Fullerton Arboretum a little, but to be honest, I've always just admired them in others' yards. This one just seemed too nice-looking to pass up.

Thanks for the advice.

[daxin]

Here is a photo of Cycas multipinnata I took at the SF garden show in 2006. The leaves are  about 8' long, with undescribable beauty and elegance. This particular plant belongs to UC Botanical Garden in Berkeley (hidden from public display). Personally I like the form and texture of this one more than those of Cycas debaoensis, but since it is so rare, I just settled for the expensive yet available C. d. .  I am glad to learn that C. d. is one of the fastest growing Cycads, but I hope I can try one Cycas multipinnata someday.

[tank]

How about C. debaoensis' cold-hardiness?  Did any get put to the test last winter in California?  Thanks for the info.

[cycadjungle]

For those of you who were asking, first Daxin, thanks for the good picture. See the "hands" I was telling everyone about? They are in little clusters. Daxin, just wait, you will be seeing seedlings of your favorite in the next year or two and by 3 years, they will start getting reasonable as well. I want a colony also, but will wait until the price levels off a little bit.

 Jason, my debaoensis plants that were under the oak trees took 21F with no leaf damage, which I was surprised to see. I'm not sure how much farther they will go, but that was a few degrees more cold hardy than I was thinking it would be.

[deezpalms]

Jason, I've got one in a 15 gallon with only one 6' leaf. I call it the fishtail cycad as the leaves are very "Caryota" like. It made through last winter just fine. I live a mile from the beach and it saw many nights in the low 30's.

[tank]

From what I've heard they may be hardy to the low twenties, upper teens, and Tom has confirmed this, at least to 21F in central Florida.

I have been reluctant to shell out the $$ for one of these for growing in north Florida until I had some more first hand accounts on their cold hardiness.  I imagine most folks aren't willing to "experiment" with these.

To expand on this, is there a website with cycad hardiness info?  I remember the old CRDB database, but it appears to be offline now.  This is all I could get off of it.

http://tct.netfirms.com/crdb/crdbcycs.html

I'll start a new thread on this.

[Kris]

Jesus Christ,iam just worshipping them with two hands folded

i think i have one at present sent to me by M@x let me search for the stills of it !even in my wilderest dreams i could imagine how beautiful this cycas would be !

thanks a lot for the stills,

love,

Kris  

[George Sparkman]

Mine got down to 24f for 5-6 hours (below freezing for 8-9 hours) and had no problems.They did not show any coldspots and did not miss a beat.

George

[Carlo Morici]

Thank you everybody for sharing your experiences with these interesting cycads.

Did anybody tried the other bipinnated cycads recently offered in the trade?

Cycas multifrondis

Cycas longipetiolula

Carlo

[cycadjungle]

I haven't tried any of those new offerings. The original source (not the seller we know) for those seeds has been unrealiable in the past and since those two names are synonymous with C. bifida, I didn't want to take the chance. I also didn't want to pay the price for the multipinnatas, just in case those seeds weren't correct. I already have a good sized colony of known males and females of C. micholitzii, and have all I will ever need of C. debaoensis, and a medium amount of C. bifida,(which I'm not really doing great with), so until I see these new multipinnata seedlings shape up, I am holding off on purchasing any more of these cycas. I think I do know someone who bought a few of the others, but it will probably take another couple of years before they shape up to see what they are going to be.

Another thing that has impressed me with C. debaoensis is that the "cones" are huge compared to C. micholitzii. Micholitziis will produce about 50 to maybe 100 seeds but C. debaoensis looks like it will produce around 300 to 400 seeds at one time. It won't be too long that these cycads will take over the world. Willie Tang had told our local society about this great species that would be impressive in cultivation years before anyone ever saw the seeds here in the US. He was right.

[Cycadcenter]

Al in Kona,

Sorry to put a damper on it but I don't think you have the real thing,  Yes some of the seed offered by RPS could have been the real thing but I think it is generally accepted that most of that seed was from a hybrid population.  

I have seen the Ex-Situ population at Fairy Lake Botanical Garden in China and ALL have the lateral branching as shown in the  photo posted by Daxin. This plant was probably one bought in from Costa Rica which are more likely to be the real think.

Also the plants at Nong Noch all have the lateral branching and they are the genuine thing.

When Dr. Li, Nan the cycad curator from FLBG stayed with us last month we saw several debos in private gardens including both the Willie Tang plants and RPS plants and she confirmed ath MOST of the RPS plants were not real debo's.

Hope this helps

Regards

Bruce

[Cycadcenter]

I went back through some old emails from a few years ago and here is the email when the seeds were originally offered for sale.

The seeds were sold as a mixture.

Regards

Bruce

Hi,

2004 RETAIL CHINA CYCAD SEED PRICE LIST

Thanks for your enqurie! I cannot provide CITES document, but all Cycad's

species are list on APP II. Does it really need CITES document? I only can

provide Phyt. Cert document. Sorry!

Cycas panzhihuaensis 15000 seeds

US$10 for 10 seeds / US$90 for 100 seeds / U?$80 for seeds

Mix seeds of C.debaoensis & C.multifrondis 23400 seeds

US$70 for 10 seeds / US$600 for 100 seeds

Cycas dinnanensis 8789 seeds

US$10 for 10 seeds / US$80 for 100 seeds

Cycas sexseminifera 4000 seeds

US$8 for 10 seeds / US$70 for 100 seeds

Cycas micholitzii 1400 seeds

US$7 for 1 seed / US$60 for 10 seeds / US$500 for 100 seeds

Cycas parvulus 709 seeds from Red River area, Gong Kou County, Yannan

Province, China

US$6 for 5 seeds / US$10 for 10 seeds / US$90 for 100 seeds

Cycas guizhouensis 318 seeds from Nan Pan River, Kai Yuen County, Yannan

Province, China

US$6 for 5 seeds / US$11 for 10 seeds

*Cycas guizhouensis 2762 seeds from Nan Pan River, Xi Lin County, Guangxi

Province, China

US$6 for 5 seeds / US$10 for 10 seeds

Cycas sp. 200 seeds from Red River as same seed size as Cycas miquii

US$2 per seed

*Who Chinese botanist at China Forest Department define it to be individual

specie Cycas xilinensis at 2002.

All seeds are fresh seeds and collected at this few months. The seeds will

be done floating test before sending.

[XYZ]

This is certainly an interesting exchange.

Over the past 18 mos, I've purchased quite a few seeds of all these spp. from RPS and A&A. I have noticed that the RPS seed labeled C. debaoensis looks quite different from that labeled C. bifida, C. multifrondis, etc. Several friends alerted me to the possibility that all of these plants might be part of a hybrid swarm, but since these are for purely ornamental purposes, I will take note but I'm not losing any sleep over this.

CJ's effusive praise of C. debaoensis was the primary reason for me taking an interest in it and its fellow multipinnate spp. a couple years ago. Thus far, I haven't seen any plants from this group, putative hybrid or not, that wasn't a genuine "ooh-ah!" BTW - since we're talking hybrid cycads here, based on images I'll venture that the vast majority of the Belizean and eastern Guatemalan-source Zamia "variegata" kicking around U.S. nurseries and gardens are also hybrids.

I will say that the seedlings from A&A seed labeled C. debaoensis does not look particularly like the plantlets from RPS. Offhand, I would also say that the two small batches of seed of this sp. that I've received from this source also did not demonstrate the excellent germination rates that I've seen with RPS material. Perhaps there are a number of different ecotypes being exploited?

Cheerio,

SJ

[cycadjungle]

I am not sure which batch we are all talking about, but what I have been assuming is the batch where A & A got a lot of seeds. I saw the advertisement of those seeds and it talked about them being just debaoensis. Maybe there was a batch that came before that batch that I never heard about, which is likely. Willie Tang went to A&A for a fund raising day for his conservation project at that nursery and he said that the plants Maurice had were within what would be pure debaoensis. Those plants are also supposed to be from the location mentioned in a genetics article written a couple of years ago by a few people in China. The earliest seeds were something to be wary of. The first year, the seller sold some micholitizii seeds that turned out to be some sort of arenga so he couldn't tell the difference between cycad and palm seeds. It all makes you wonder and make you even more wary of seed brokers because you never know for sure.

[Fouquieria]

I went onto rarepalmseeds and saw the prices for some of these cycad seeds.

For packets of ten:

longipetiolula--$132.90

multifrondis--$126.40

multipinnata--278.80

http://rarepalmseeds.com/small.shtml

Cycas debaoensis oddly enough was on the list yesterday but not today, and it was the second most expensive after multipinnata.  I'm assuming these aren't so rare, that they aren't covered under CITES?  Why are they so expensive then?

-Ron-

[Al in Kona]

Thanks everone for your input and knowledge on C. debaoensis.  Well, regardless of what I actually end up having, I like it.  Guess only time will tell.

[Moose]

[Mark lasvegas]

When they push leaves, look to see if they have reddish hairs on them, then you probably got multi's. I have found, thru growing seedlings inside vs. outdoors in deep shade, that my indoor plants, though having flushed only half as many leaves as the outdoors group, were actually sporting caudex's twice as large as the outdoor brethren. I get the feeling they will make great indoor houseplants.