Thanks again to Ruth for today's write-up:

Aahhhh, a gymnosperm. It's been a while since we've discussed a plant without flowers. Here is a "dinosaur species", a member of the Zamiaceae populating the landscape during Cretaceous times: Velociraptor (75 to 71Ma ago), Tyrannosaurus rex (68 to 65Ma ago) and Encephalartos caffer -- if only I had a time machine! Out-surviving the dinosaurs, this specific Encephalartos is from the coastal belt of southeast Africa in the east of Cape Province. It is speculated that the species has evolved to seek shelter from grassveld wildfires by a strategy of growing tucked amongst rock outcroppings. Encephalartos caffer is accustomed to hot dry summers and will not tolerate frost. Some individuals have been recorded at a height of 4.5 meters, but growth to this extreme takes decades and rarely happens in cultivation.

Cycads, like many gymnosperms, are dioecious, meaning there are separate male and female plants. Today's picture is of a young female cone. The cone arose from a short stalk emerging from the basal rosette of stiff compound leaves. At maturity, this cone will bear bright red seeds, two per scale. The name Encephalartos translates to bread within the head in Greek, alluding to the fact that a starch for bread can be made from the pith of the stalk. Some Africans still use these plants for that purpose, although cycads as a group are generally endangered. I urge you not to attempt making bread from a cycad, as their toxicity is under investigation. Cycads contain toxic compunds in many of their tissues, with seeds having especially concentrated amounts of these often lethal poisons.

Thank you to J.G. in S.F.@Flickr for adding this photograph to the BPotD Flickr Pool.

Thank you to Michael Charters, the person behind the oft-referenced-by-BPotD Calflora.net for sharing today's photograph. Michael submitted it via the BPotD Submissions forum on the garden's site; the original image is in this thread: Cycas taiwaniana. I should also mention that one of Michael's ongoing projects is “What's Blooming at the Los Angeles County Arboretum?” – certainly makes me want to visit! Thanks, Michael.

Michael has also described this photograph: “This is the female strobilus or cone of a Cycas taiwaniana, or as it is sometimes listed, Cycas revoluta var. taiwaniana, showing the sporophylls or cone scales. The cone scales are modified leaves which will bear 2-8 ovules that will eventually become seeds after fertilization.” To read more on cycad biology, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney has produced the top-notch The Cycad Pages. I'd also be remiss if I didn't suggest the Gymnosperm Database's entry on the Cycadales.

Cycas taiwaniana is listed as endangered (A2acd) by the IUCN Red List, meaning “An observed, estimated, inferred or suspected population size reduction of greater than or equal to 50% over the last 10 years or three generations, whichever is the longer, where the reduction or its causes may not have ceased or may not be understood or may not be reversible, based on ... direct observation, a decline in area of occupancy, extent of occurrence and/or quality of habitat, and actual or potential levels of exploitation.” Quite grim. The Wikipedia entry on cycads summarizes in plainer language: “In recent years, many cycads have been dwindling in numbers and may face risk of extinction because of theft and unscrupulous collection from their natural habitats, as well as from habitat destruction”. Also, read the New York Times article by Lauren Kessler: “The Cult of the Cycads”.

Botany Photo of the Day will have brief written entries on weekends, holidays and my vacations from April through September. – Daniel

Thank you to “ginger749” on the UBC Botanical Garden Forums for submitting this photograph from Gold Coast, Australia (original image in this thread).

In another example of a misleading common name, sago palm is a cycad, not a palm. The Palm and Cycad Societies of Australia has a factsheet on Cycas revoluta.

The cycad collection of Ganna Walska Lotusland in Montecito, California was purchased with the proceeds from the sale of some jewelry – a million dollar's worth, in fact. The species of cycad in sharp focus (more on this later) was previously featured on BPotD: Encephalartos horridus.

On the strong encouragement of David Tarrant, we fit a visit to Lotusland into our trip (having to spend an extra day in Santa Barbara to do so since they were already fully booked on the day we hoped to visit the garden – book well in advance!). If you ever visit Santa Barbara, a trip to Lotusland is worth every penny. I say this despite the fact that you can't wander to your heart's content; the only option available is the two hour guided tour. This is difficult for anyone who wants to admire the plants and gardens for more than a few minutes in a particular place, and absurdly so if you want to attempt to photograph it (speaking from experience!).

Bold gardens are usually the creations of bold gardeners (or bold personalities). To read more about Lotusland and Ganna Walska, here are two articles: Forget About Rubies – She Wanted Cycads from the Christian Science Monitor and What The Diva Wrought, published in the Wall Street Journal.

Lotusland was one of four gardens I visited on my vacation (along with Huntington BG, Santa Barbara BG and the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum). Other numbers from my trip: I visited 6 US National Parks, 6 State Parks, 2 US National Forests (that I photographed in – passed through a few more), 1 US National Seashore (Point Reyes) and 3 US National Monuments. I travelled over 10 000km (6000 miles); the southernmost point was Rodeo, New Mexico while easternmost was Albuquerque, NM.

In terms of photography, I pressed the shutter button on the camera nearly 2500 times (I'll probably keep a thousand or so of these images). This number would have been higher if the weather had cooperated. In general, I was accompanied by cool weather with milky clouded skies, so photographs of landscapes were unspectacular. Those sorts of skies are usually great for flower photography – except there were few flowers thanks to the extremely dry winter in the southwest US. Anyway, I did the best I could with what I had available to me.

In preparation for the trip, I purchased a few lenses: a wide-angle lens (for landscape photographs), a quality telephoto lens and the one I used for today's image: the Lensbaby 2.0.

Photography resource link: Flickr photographs tagged with “lensbaby” and “flower”, to give you an idea of what this lens does.

Kirstenbosch National Botanic Garden in South Africa is the site of today's photographs, contributed by Wayne in the United Kingdom (aka WLA@Flickr | BPotD Flickr Group Pool). The original images are here and here. Along with visiting Wayne's photographs on Flickr, you should also spend some time on his weblog, Earth, Wind & Water – “Warning – Please look under your vehicles for penguins.”

The first cycad to appear on Botany Photo of the Day (what are cycads?), this plant is commonly known as the ferocious blue cycad, the barbed wire cycad or, simply, the horrible cycad. Native to only a small area in Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, Encephalartos horridus is listed as vulnerable in the 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants or “EN A4cd; B1ab(i,iii,iv,v)” in the 2004 IUCN Red List (EN meaning endangered). The A4cd code means the species has an observed, estimated, inferred, projected or suspected population size reduction of 50% over any 10 year or three generation period (including the past and future), whichever is longer (up to a maximum of 100 years in the future), and where the reduction or its causes may not have ceased OR may not be understood OR may not be reversible, based on a decline in area of occupancy, extent of occurrence and/or quality of habitat and/or actual or potential levels of exploitation. For the B1ab(i,iii,iv,v) code, which refers to the geographic extent of the plant, you can read the definition on the IUCN's Red List site. The rationale for adding codes to explain conservation status is also explained in that link. While “EN A4cd; B1ab(i,iii,iv,v)” may appear daunting at first, the system is actually fairly simple to use and communicates a lot of conservation status information quickly once one becomes familiar with it.

For more reading on this rare plant, see the species page for Encephalartos horridus on Royal Botanic Garden Sydney's The Cycad Pages or this page on the web site of the Palm & Cycad Societies of Australia. A broader view of the family Zamiaceae is available from the Gymnosperm Database.

Botany / horticulture resource link: the web site of plant expert and writer Arthur Lee Jacobson includes a Plant of the Month series and a number of his articles (emphasizing plants of Seattle) and essays, including this eminently sensible one on Nature.