Cycads

Most cycads are excellent landscape and potted plants choices and most tend to be sought after by thousands of collectors who love these plants. Dioons from the America’s. Cycas from Asia, But of all the cycad genera Encephalartos are easily the most popular and sought after . All Encephalartos species are considered endangered making the struggle of collecting them that much more costly and difficult.

There is no other group of plants commercially available that are as rare as cycads. It is not only because of their rarity that these plants are admired, but also because their extraordinary beauty and unusual appearance. Because of these factors, cycads are amongst the most sought-after and coveted plants for botanical gardens, public plantings, and private collectors. Curators at large botanical gardens will tell you that cycads are the most special acquisition of their collection.

Cycads have been increasing in popularity because of their unique and distinctive appearance. There is no other group of plants that is quite the same. In gardens, they are elegant and they complement many other types of plants. In the wild, cycads are mixed among a wide array of endemic vegetation. It would be unusual to see just cycads in any natural habitat. Instead, they are distributed among palms, hardwood trees, succulent plants and other types of native vegetation. This tendency to be a “companion plant” is the reason why cycads are an excellent addition to most landscape designs. Depending on your local climatic conditions, a well-rounded tropical garden should have a mixture of cycads, palms and other tropical plants--for example, in the rainforest there is not just one type of plant growing, but a variety of various plants which truly create the tropical effect.

Cycads are a family of plants that predate the Jurassic era. One can find primitive fossils of cycad species still extant today. In other words, many cycads have changed very little over the last 200 millions years or more. They were here when the dinosaurs were; but unlike the dinosaurs, many cycad species persisted nearly unchanged and are observed around the world growing in the same fashion that they grew in millions of years ago. In the Jurassic period there were many more species of cycads than there are today.

Cycads were a dominant plant type found during the pre-historic era. Because they have continued to survive, cycads are referred to as “living fossils”. No doubt, there has been evolution to accommodate this family of plants to many diverse habitats, from tropical rainforests to dry grasslands and desert climates. This adaptation has given us a wide, diverse group of plants that can survive in many different areas. Thus, there are many “living fossils” that grow nicely in the different climatic conditions we see throughout the world. Many thrive in California. Like the one below in Southgate, Ca.