This plant was on my place when I bought it so don't know how old it is. Through the dry season (winter) the fronds began to die off. At the same time there was a growth at the top which looked like a large male cone. Eventually all the fronds died off but the "cone" kept growing. With the transition season (change from dry to wet) set in this "cone" began to rapidly produce new fronds at the top. That was when I decided to take a closer look at it.
Close up you can see what look like constrictions in the trunk. This appears to be its normal growth habit. As the older fronds die back it extends its trunk up and then new fronds only come from the top of the new section of trunk. I don't know what the interval is between these spurts of growth. But I've been here about 6 years and there appears to be only 4 of those periods of growth. I'll have to keep digging through my old photos to see if I can find anything there that could throw light on this issue. Meantime, does anyone have an ID for it? Thanks.
can you photograph a single leaflet and show us?
The leaflets
Close up of tips of leaflets
Top of frond
Underside of frond
Plant from above. The fluffy stuff around the base of the fronds is an accumulation of African Mahogany flowers which are raining down real thick now.
african mahogony flowers?
Khaya senegalensis, a huge tree from equatorial Africa, it was very popular here years ago, everyone loved it and wanted it. Now everyone loves to hate it and wants to get rid of it. They drop masses of leaves without (noticeably) losing any of their canopy. Then they drop masses of tiny flowers. Most of the rest of the year they drop large branches and hard seed pods the size of golf balls. And to top that off they're one of the first trees to go over in cyclones.
oh wonderful! yeah I can see why everyone would want to get rid of them then!
Take a look at cycas circinalis. Its not an encephalartos and I don't think it is of the Macrozamia family.
Thanks NVRAGN, I had a good look at Cycas circinalis but still not sure. It has some similarities, but perhaps it is a variable species. Distinguishing features seem to be based on the megasporophyll and I don't have that on the plant. Don't even know whether it's a male or female plant. It does seem to be fast growing, and it's claimed that C. circinalis is the fastest growing cycad.
Just thought I'd resurrect this thread as I finally got this cycad identified. It's Cycas xipholepis, not exactly a native to here, but not all that far off. It's native to Cape York Peninsula, similar climate to here.
This year it seeded, so is a female. But the only source of pollen would be C. armstrongii. Could be the seeds are hybrid, or just infertile. I'll be giving them a try as they're starting to yellow a bit now.
Nice... never heard of it
I googled this up, should give you a bit of an idea:
http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/cycadpg?taxname=Cycas+xipholepis
Doesn't seem to be common in cultivation and on the cycad forums the Cycas experts agreed it was unmistakeably that species although none seem to have seen anything other than copies of herbarium sheets. It's difficult to even speculate how that one ended up on my place, but the previous owner had friends in the nursery business. I could probably make enquiries there. And if the seeds germinate it'll be interesting to see what comes out of them.
