Another ceratozamia in the miqueliana complex, C. euryphyllidia. These are baby 2 year old seedlings. Picture these with 14 foot tall leaves and leaflets 8 inches wide. They should start coning in three more years and should be at least 8 feet tall by then.

There are plants that are being called Ceratozamia mexicana, but this is the true mexicana. The main reason why this is important is that plant will take 14 F with no problem where others being called this are nowhere near this cold hardy. The way you can tell this species is that the green emergent leaves have very thin leaflets that are boat shaped. There may only be a few of these in all of Florida.

Some of you may have already seen " The bamboo cycad", Ceratozamia hildae. If not, they have upright leaves that get about 7 feet tall. This may truly be, one of the most cold hardy cycads. At 12 F,not even leaf tip damage occurred during a freeze in Texas recently. This particular hildae is more unusual though. Hildaes usually have small spines on the petioles. This plant is totally spineless. It took 3 generations of breeding to get this plant.

This is a ceratozamia that is being called mexicana in the south Florida nursery trade. Notice, the leaflets are too wide, and this plant burns at 23 F. The seeds were traced back to being 10 miles north of Veracruz Mexico. The colony has never been found again and has no species name. Can't call it a mexicana and can't call it a green latifolia. Also,not a robusta.

nice collection of Ceratozamias... I only have a few myself, but live near someone with a good collection (has 25 species of this genus in his). C europhyllidia is indeed a rare one, but one some here in So California have a hard time keeping happy unless they just keep it in their greenhouse. Most of the rest do fine outdoors here.

Here is a link to some photos of this collection (along with a few photos from elsewhere):

http://agaveville.org/viewforum.php?f=42

Beautiful collection! Thanks for sharing.

Yea, a lot of those pictures are from Loren's house. One of the top two private cycad gardens in the US.

I bought C. mexicana more then a decade ago..closer to 15 years now. Once I almost threw it into the green bin after a couple of years of no fronds. The wife took it,potted it,and since then its made a nice- if VERY SLOW- comeback. And back in the ground.
This "mexicana" looks much more like the one with the wide leaflets. I think most people- I did- think these are small dwarf Cycads when in fact,they get a wide spread if not much of a trunk. They need room to spread and in coastal California full sun is best.
As always too...never give up on a Cycad. My motto now.

I've had plenty of plants that didn't push new leaves for three years. Many people have said that growing cycads at least teaches you patience. I was told this by John Donaldson, who is the head of the IUCN cycads specialist group, he told me the story of Encephalartos cycadifolius. A clustered plant can live 2500 years and as long as it produces another mature plant to take it's place in 2500 years, it has done it's job. At the time, we were talking about whether it would be alright to take some seeds out of habitat, or not. A female cycadifolius will produce around 250,000 seeds in it's lifetime, and on average, it will make one mature plant to take it's place.
If you think it takes a long time to push new leaves, try taking stem piece cuttings and making new mature plants from those cuttings.
I've been growing these plants for 28 years and they humble you as a grower. Some of those plants in the pictures, I have hand watered over 2000 times, and it has been well worth all the time.