Under the Cuban Sun with Marie-Victorin - A virtual exhibit of the Montréal Botanical Garden

Pygmy zamia

Zamia pygmaea
Zamiaceae

Species collected in Cuba by Brother Marie-Victorin. Arrived at the Montr?al Botanical Garden on April 1, 1940, as a rhizome.

I made a great find in the midst of a stand of Acoelorraphe! A Zamia pygmaea, the pygmy version of that so typically Cuban Cycad genus. These are ancient plants, the sight of which always thrills a botanist, because they roll back the wheel of time, whisking him off to a very early age on Earth. They are completely at home in these xerophytic habitats.

Marie-Victorin examining a Zamia pygmaea.

UdeM: E01185FP11648

UdeM: E01185FP11650

This species' underground trunk is a vertical cylinder two or three centimetres across and fifteen to twenty-five centimetres long. The leaves, which hug the ground, are so tiny that one must look carefully to spot them in the lush grass.

A harvest of individual adult Zamia pygmaea plants, displayed on a Acoelorraphe wrightii leaf.