Foods for the Dinosaurs!

When the word 'dinosaur' is mentioned, it elicits thoughts about history, age, huge size, curiosity. When we say 'foods of the dinosaurs', we think of longevity, permanence, awe! And all of these terms can be used for cycads or cycas, the plants as old as the dinosaurs, and in fact one of their foods during their time. I just learned these information only recently, even if we have two genus of Cycas at home: Cycas revoluta and Cycas edentata. We have 2 mature specimens of the latter. It was actually planted by my sister when she was still a kid. Now it has grown big that my mother always cut some of the growing points, to prevent some branches from growing towards the house.


I seldom see cycas plants near our area. It is dioecious, meaning male and female structures are in separate plants. It turned out that ours is female, and it produced many fruits for the last 4 years. Pollens in the air pollinated them, however i haven't located the male plant. I just got curious with it after finding that it is vulnerable in our country. I now told my mother and the household about it. To prevent her from trying to kill it, I jokingly say that it must be allowed to grow so when the next generation of dinosaurs come, they already have food waiting. It elicited a good laugh from everybody. There are already many seedlings underneath it, which i gave to a blogging friend, Tristan,  who collects endemic species. I also gave 2 seedlings to Plantchaser, a collector of unusual and exotic plants.

 

           Top left: our 2nd Cycas edentata plant; Top right: young branches of our old plant

above: our old plant with Drynaria ferns growing on trunk, you can see the cut tips, courtesy of my mother

 

 Top left: a young branch; Top right: megasporophylls with the fruiting bodies

Top and Bottom: immature C. edentata fruits. This year is not a prolific year for its fruiting.

Above is a 3 yr old seedling, showing the tap root, secondary roots and the specialized 'coralloid roots', which contain the Cyanobacteria for nitrogen fixation. It is almost similar to legumes, which have nodules in the roots also for nitrogen fixation. No wonder the genus has survived for centuries through circumstances unknown to our generation yet.

An old specimen in front of the University of Santo Tomas campus, the oldest university in the country. If only ours is planted in an open space, we can allow it to branch and grow like this one.