Pithy Bread and Colorful Poison, Cycad of South Africa
Encephalartos villosus; one of many kinds of cycads found in South Africa. Often confused with palmtrees, cycads are rather gymnosperms.
The name derives from the Greek 'Encephalos' (= Brain or Head) + 'artos' (= Bread), thus Head- or Brain-Bread; the 'villosus' means woolly and refers to the leaves which are relatively hairy when young. Encephalartos of several kinds were called Kaffir or Hottentot Bread by Dutch colonists, and they also went by the name of Brood Boom, Bread Tree.The indigenous peoples removed the pith from the plant stems and buried this, wrapped in animal skins, for about 6 weeks. Fermented, it was then ground with water, shaped into breads and baked. The food is highly starchy and of good quality.
The pictured colorful fruit, on the other hand, is very poisonous. Children have died from its ingestion, and adults fall terribly ill. An entire military company led by Gerneral J. C. Smuts, pursued by the English in the Anglo-Boer War, in September 1901 entered the Zuurberg Mountains in the East Cape. Consumed with hunger they ate the kernels of probably a sister of this plant, the Longifolius. About 100 men, including Smuts himself, were severely poisoned. None, however, lost their lives.
Confusingly, Encephalartos has gone, too, by the name Zamia; the famous German-Russian botanist (and also a physician of sorts) Joseph Gärtner (1732-1791) describes a Zamia villosus, but this was probably an Encephalartos caffer. The pictured specimen is the Encephalartos villosus first named by the French classical scholar and avid naturalist Charles Antoine Lemaire (1880-1871) who, in 1867, waxed elqouent about its 'merit and superior beauty'.
Encephalartos villosus is a popular and rewarding garden plant, and it has thus spread all over the world; but it is just holding on as a plant in 'free' nature in the East Cape, indeed near the Zuurberg Mountains.
This specimen was seen in Stellenbosch, University Botanical Garden.
Pithy Bread and Colorful Poison, Cycad of South Africa
Encephalartos villosus; one of many kinds of cycads found in South Africa. Often confused with palmtrees, cycads are rather gymnosperms.
The name derives from the Greek 'Encephalos' (= Brain or Head) + 'artos' (= Bread), thus Head- or Brain-Bread; the 'villosus' means woolly and refers to the leaves which are relatively hairy when young. Encephalartos of several kinds were called Kaffir or Hottentot Bread by Dutch colonists, and they also went by the name of Brood Boom, Bread Tree.The indigenous peoples removed the pith from the plant stems and buried this, wrapped in animal skins, for about 6 weeks. Fermented, it was then ground with water, shaped into breads and baked. The food is highly starchy and of good quality.
The pictured colorful fruit, on the other hand, is very poisonous. Children have died from its ingestion, and adults fall terribly ill. An entire military company led by Gerneral J. C. Smuts, pursued by the English in the Anglo-Boer War, in September 1901 entered the Zuurberg Mountains in the East Cape. Consumed with hunger they ate the kernels of probably a sister of this plant, the Longifolius. About 100 men, including Smuts himself, were severely poisoned. None, however, lost their lives.
Confusingly, Encephalartos has gone, too, by the name Zamia; the famous German-Russian botanist (and also a physician of sorts) Joseph Gärtner (1732-1791) describes a Zamia villosus, but this was probably an Encephalartos caffer. The pictured specimen is the Encephalartos villosus first named by the French classical scholar and avid naturalist Charles Antoine Lemaire (1880-1871) who, in 1867, waxed elqouent about its 'merit and superior beauty'.
Encephalartos villosus is a popular and rewarding garden plant, and it has thus spread all over the world; but it is just holding on as a plant in 'free' nature in the East Cape, indeed near the Zuurberg Mountains.
This specimen was seen in Stellenbosch, University Botanical Garden.