Encephalartos woodii
| Wood's cycad | |
|---|---|
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| A large stem of Encephalartos woodii at the Durban Botanic Gardens | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Division: | Cycadophyta |
| Class: | Cycadopsida |
| Order: | Cycadales |
| Family: | Zamiaceae |
| Genus: | Encephalartos |
| Species: | E. woodii |
| Binomial name | |
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Encephalartos woodii Sander |
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Encephalartos woodii, Wood's cycad, is a rare cycad in the genus Encephalartos, and is endemic to the oNgoye Forest of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is one of the rarest plants in the world, being extinct in the wild with all specimens being clones of the type. The specific and common name both honour John Medley Wood, curator of the Durban Botanic Garden and director of the Natal Government Herbarium of South Africa, who discovered the plant in 1895.
It is palm tree like, and can reach a height of 6 metres (20 ft). The trunk is about 30–50 centimetres (12–20 in) in diameter, thickest at the bottom, and topped by a crown of 50–150 leaves. The leaves are glossy and dark green, 150–250 centimetres (59–98 in) in length, and keeled with 70–150 leaflets, the leaflets falcate (sickle-shaped), 13–15 centimetres (5–6 in) long and 20–30 millimetres (0.8–1 in) broad.
E. woodii is dioecious, meaning it has separate male and female plants, however no female plant has ever been discovered. The male strobili are cylindrical, 20–40 centimetres (7.9–16 in) long, exceptionally up to 120 centimetres (47 in), and 15–25 centimetres (6–10 in) in diameter; they are a vivid yellow-orange colour. A single plant may bear from around six to eight simultaneously.
Encephalartos woodii was first described by Wood as a variety of E. altensteinii (as E. altensteinii var. bispinna), and raised to the rank of species in 1908 by the English horticulturalist Henry Sander from studying a specimen in his collection, which was apparently one of the basal offsets taken from the original clump. It has been considered that Encephalartos woodii is most closely related to E. natalensis. Some authorities consider E. woodii to not be a true species but rather a mutant E. natalensis or a relic of some other species. Yet others consider this plant to be a natural hybrid between E. natalensis and E. ferox. To determine the relationship between E. natalensis and E. woodii, the RAPD technique was used to generate genetic fingerprints and data analysed using distance methods. Based on RAPD fingerprints, the intraspecific genetic variation among different E. natalensis plants is similar to the interspecific variation between E. natalensis and E. woodii, which confirms the close relationship between E. natalensis and E. woodii.
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