Cycas armstrongii
Miq.
Zamia palm, Cycad
(c) Mark Hura, some rights reserved (CC BY-NC), uploaded by Mark Hura
(c) John Tann, some rights reserved (CC BY)
(c) John Tann, some rights reserved (CC BY)
What to Eat
Edible parts: Seeds
The seeds (nuts) are eaten or made into flour after extensive preparation: roasting, cracking, de-husking, pounding, and soaking the pulp in water for 3 days.
Where to Find It
A tropical plant. It grows in open forest. It suits tropical regions with seasonally dry climates. It suits hardiness zones 11-12.
Australia*,
How to Identify
A palm like plant 2-4 m high. The trunk is rough and dark brown. The trunk is 10-15 cm across. Trees lose their leaves during the year. Male and female trees are separate. The leaves are up to 1 m long and made up of 100 or more leaflets. These leaflets are stiff, flat and narrow. They are 7-14 cm long by 0.5-0.7 cm wide. The stalk has thorns below the leaflets. The male cone is oval and brown. It is 12-20 cm long. It is made up of many scales arranged like a spiral. It grows at the top of the trunk. The female spike is flattened and hairy. There are usually 4 fruit. The fruit are hard and round and 2-4 cm across. They are brown when ripe. There is a single seed inside.
Nutrition Score: 54/100
| Part | Moisture | kJ | kcal | Protein | Vit A | Vit C | Iron | Zinc |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nut processed | 29.3 | 722 | 173 | 5.8 | — | — | 4.6 | 1.2 |
How to Grow
Plants are grown from seed. Seed may take 6-18 months to germinate. It can be grown from suckers.
Wikipedia
Source ↗Cycas armstrongii is a species of cycad in the genus Cycas, endemic to the Northern Territory of Australia. It is found from Darwin to the Mary River, the Finniss River in the west to the Arnhem Highway in the east, and north of Pine Creek. It also occurs on the Tiwi Islands and the Cobourg Peninsula. The stems reach 3 m (rarely 6 m) tall, with a diameter of 5–11 cm. The leaves are (very unusually for a cycad) deciduous in the dry season (though persistent if grown in moister situations), 55–90 cm long, slightly keeled or flat, pinnate with 100-220 leaflets; the leaflets densely orange-pubescent at first, then glossy bright green above, light green below, 5.5–14 cm long and 4.5–8 mm wide, angled forward at 40 degrees. Mature plants have around 50 leaves in the crown. The female cones open, with 13–22 cm long sporophylls with 2-4 ovules per sporophyll on a lanceolate triangular lamina with an apical spine. The sarcotesta has a yellow coating when ripe. The male cones are ovoid, orange, 11–20 cm long and 7.5–10 cm diameter, with upper half of cone drawn to a point. Fruiting: March to September. The species is named after the plant collector John Armstrong (d. 1847), a Kew Gardens plant collector, who was based at Port Essington on the Cobourg Peninsula.
Notes
There are about 20-40 Cycas species.
Names & Synonyms
Andirnku, Kwaka, Laluk, Marra, Minta, Ttuntju
References (18)
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