# The golden tipped sago palm, Cycas revoluta v. aurea



## KyushuCalanthe (May 14, 2013)

The yellow tipped form of sago palm (actually a cycad), _Cycas revoluta v. aurea_, is one of the those love or hate plants, depending on your tastes. The plant starts out with fully green fronds, but soon after flushing the pinnae begin to yellow from their tips, and this progresses down their length for some months before they begin to brown. This is kind of a boring video, but at least you can see how the yellowing progresses in detail.

Cycas revoluta v. aurea


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## jjkOC (May 14, 2013)

Nice contrast!


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## mrhappyrotter (May 14, 2013)

Cool. I love cycads. They're fascinating plants.

A little bit of a tangent, here ... Back around 2002 or 2003 I found out that this species is supposedly hardy in my area. We regularly get winter lows in the teens (fahrenheit) and rarely down into the single digits, so I wasn't convinced of the hardiness. However, I decided to try one outside in the garden.

The cycad did well all spring, summer and fall, but unfortunately it didn't survive the winter even though it wasn't a particularly bad winter. By that following spring, the trunk was just a smelly, mushy husk, so I dug the plant up and threw it into the mulch pile and never attempted to grow another outside.

Then, two years ago (almost a decade after discarding the plant), my former landlord sent me a photo of a strange leaf that popped up next to the mulch pile. It was unmistakable, cycas revoluta. Somehow that "dead" and rotting heap of a plant had managed to feign death and continue surviving for many years unnoticed. It's really a testament to its ability to survive and these qualities are probably why these ancient plants have survived multiple extinction events. To this day, I'm still amazed.

I now have the plant in my collection. I dug it up and put it in a pot. I figure if it can survive certain death and years in a mulch pile, it's a plant that's determined to live -- I need more of those.


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## SlipperFan (May 15, 2013)

Fascinating plant! Thanks, Tom and MrHR!


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## KyushuCalanthe (May 15, 2013)

Yup, never throw away a cycad, they will surprise you. C. revoluta in particular can come back from sections of the trunk since it is able to sprout pups even when the crown is dead, and presumably most of the roots.

Check out this excellent article by Tom Broome:

Never throw away a cycad

Same goes with seeds you are germinating. I've throw away old cycad seeds that just seemed history (not germinating after 2+ years, bad smell, etc.) and found them growing in my compost heap a year later!


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## SlipperFan (May 16, 2013)

I'm thinking Cycads like to be thrown into the compost pile!


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## Clark (May 17, 2013)

This will look great at my next house, in about a dozen years.


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## KyushuCalanthe (May 17, 2013)

Clark said:


> This will look great at my next house, in about a dozen years.



Florida?


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## Clark (May 17, 2013)

Yes, at the moment.
We know there are more affordable areas, but both of us want to continue living close to the big pond.


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## KyushuCalanthe (May 18, 2013)

Clark said:


> Yes, at the moment.
> We know there are more affordable areas, but both of us want to continue living close to the big pond.



Where are you looking to buy, the southwest coast? I lived in the Port Charlotte area around 20 years ago - good climate to grow things outside with very few threats from frost. But hurricanes...


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## Clark (May 19, 2013)

Tom, we are not sure yet.
The hurricane thing is an issue. Workers are still in cleanup mode, this weekend, due to Sandy.

Thanks for sharing the vids!


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## Trithor (May 19, 2013)

I have a fair collection of cycads from Cycas revoluta and thouarsii and around 20 species of Southern African Encephalartos. Apart from paphs these are my second plant passion


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## KyushuCalanthe (May 21, 2013)

Trithor said:


> I have a fair collection of cycads from Cycas revoluta and thouarsii and around 20 species of Southern African Encephalartos. Apart from paphs these are my second plant passion



I just got back into cycads a couple years ago. I am jealous of your selection of Encephalartos - here in Japan they are ridiculously expensive. A plant of E. princeps with a caudex as big as your fist can cost $500 US or more.


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## naoki (May 22, 2013)

Tom, do you know the scientific name of "sotetsu"? It's a fairly common garden plant in Southern Japan (e.g. Shikoku and Kyushuu)? My parents' garden had lots of these big Cycads, and the leaves look similar to your plant (except ours didn't have yellow tips).


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## KyushuCalanthe (May 23, 2013)

naoki said:


> Tom, do you know the scientific name of "sotetsu"? It's a fairly common garden plant in Southern Japan (e.g. Shikoku and Kyushuu)? My parents' garden had lots of these big Cycads, and the leaves look similar to your plant (except ours didn't have yellow tips).



Hey Naoki, the Japanese native sotestu is this species, Cycas revoluta, probably the most widely recognized cycad species in the world. This form is v. aurea, but of course most are the normal dark green variety. They are originally from extreme southern Kyushu Island (Kagoshima Prefecture) and throughout the southern islands to Okinawa, as well as the Chinese mainland (east Fujian).

Sotetsu is also a term used for cycads in general in Japanese.


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