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Cycads
Encephalartos altensteinii
The name Encephalartos is derived from the Greek, and
means ‘bread in the head’. This refers to the Hottentots’
practice of removing the pith from the cycad's stem and burying
it in the ground for 2 months before kneading it into bread and
baking it in embers. During the 2-month burial, toxins within the
pith are destroyed.
The superb specimen of this cycad at Kew is one of the oldest
pot plants in the world. It was collected in the Eastern Cape region
of South Africa in the early 1770s and brought back to England
in 1775 by Francis Masson, one of Kew's earliest plant collectors.
For many years the plant was known as E. longifolius but
recent studies in South Africa have proved that it is E. altensteinii.
Initially planted at ground level, the cycad now measures 4 m
23 cm from the base of its stem to the growing point (an average
growth rate of only 2.5 cm per year). It has produced a cone only
once at Kew. On that occasion in 1819, Sir Joseph Banks came to
view the plant on what proved to be his last visit to Kew.
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