Lepidozamia peroffskyana

Lepidozamia peroffskyana is a large, palm-like cycad of eastern Australia that grows in dense stands in the moist coastal forests of south-east Queensland and north-eastern New South Wales. Its trunk, armoured with old leaf bases, carries a crown of very glossy, spineless leaves 1.5 to 3 m long, and its female cones are among the largest of any Australian cycad. It is the type species of the genus Lepidozamia, described in 1857 from a plant grown at the botanic garden in St Petersburg, and old books still list it as Macrozamia peroffskyana or Macrozamia denisonii. Known in English as the scaly zamia, pineapple cycad or shining burrawang, it is the more widely grown and the hardier of the two Lepidozamia.

Key facts about Lepidozamia peroffskyana

  • Accepted name: Lepidozamia peroffskyana Regel (1857), published in the Bulletin de la Société impériale des naturalistes de Moscou 30(1); accepted by The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15), the WCVP (Kew) and the Australian Plant Census
  • Former names and synonyms: Macrozamia denisonii C.Moore & F.Muell. (1858), Encephalartos denisonii (C.Moore & F.Muell.) F.Muell. (1859), Lepidozamia denisonii (C.Moore & F.Muell.) Regel (1875), Macrozamia peroffskyana (Regel) Miq. (1868)
  • Family: Zamiaceae, order Cycadales; type species of the genus Lepidozamia
  • Common names: “scaly zamia”, “pineapple cycad”, “pineapple zamia” and “shining burrawang” in English
  • Natural range: eastern Australia, about 700 km of coast and nearby ranges from near Gympie (Queensland) to near Taree (New South Wales), from sea level to about 1,000 m (about 3,300 ft)
  • IUCN status: Least Concern (LC), assessment by J.D. Bösenberg published in 2022
  • CITES and other protection: CITES Appendix II (annotation #4); Annex B in the European Union; “special least concern” in Queensland under the Nature Conservation Act 1992
  • Documented hardiness: undamaged by direct frost down to −6 °C (21 °F) in an Australian nursery (Kraa, 1993); in France, plants in the ground defoliated at −5 °C (23 °F) and at −8 to −9 °C (18 to 16 °F), then regrew (see Cold hardiness)
  • Light and soil: filtered sun or partial shade, with shelter from afternoon sun; free-draining sandy loam, slightly acid to neutral
  • Habit and adult size: trunk up to 4 m, rarely 7 m, and up to 80 cm (31 in) across, sometimes branched; leaves 1.5 to 3 m long; female cones 40 to 90 cm long
  • In the UK, US and Australia: under glass at Edinburgh, Belfast, Kew and other British gardens; outdoors in California and Florida; in most Australian botanic gardens (see In cultivation)
  • Toxicity: the seeds are poisonous and have caused deaths in people and livestock (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Lepidozamia peroffskyana

It is recognised by its trunk armoured with old leaf bases, by its very glossy, flexible leaves without spines and by its narrow leaflets, 5 to 13 mm wide, which arise from the top of the leaf axis. The Flora of Australia (K.D. Hill, 1998), the Palm and Cycad Societies of Australia (PACSOA), the Australian National Botanic Gardens (ANBG) and the Australian Native Plants Society (ANPSA) give the following characters:

  • Trunk: erect, up to 4 m, rarely 7 m, tall and up to 80 cm in diameter (Flora of Australia), covered with the old leaf bases. It is usually single, but in some stands plants with several heads are common, with up to five trunks; the tallest plant seen in New South Wales by the PACSOA author branched at 1.8 m and reached a little over 5 m.
  • Leaves: up to 150 in the crown according to the Flora of Australia, 50 to 60 according to PACSOA, 1.5 to 3 m long, very glossy dark green, on a petiole 30 to 60 cm long, with an untwisted axis. New leaves rise almost vertically in flushes, bronze or brownish, before turning green and hardening.
  • Leaflets: 150 to 250 per leaf, 20 to 40 cm long and 5 to 13 mm wide, with 7 to 13 parallel veins, arising alternately from the midline of the leaf axis, with no coloured callus at the base and no sharp tip (Flora of Australia; PACSOA).
  • Male cones: cylindrical, 45 to 75 cm long and 12 to 19 cm across according to the Flora of Australia; before shedding pollen they open in an unusual spiral and stretch to as much as 1 m (PACSOA).
  • Female cones: cylindrical to barrel-shaped, stalkless, 40 to 90 cm long and 12 to 25 cm across (Flora of Australia), 50 to 75 cm according to ANPSA; usually one per plant, sometimes two. They are the largest cones of any New South Wales cycad (PACSOA).
  • Seeds: 40 to 60 mm long and 25 to 30 mm wide, with a bright red fleshy coat, occasionally yellow. A peculiarity of the species is that some cone scales carry one or three seeds instead of two: three at the base of the cone, one near the tip (PACSOA).

The plants are dioecious: each one bears either male or female cones.

Hybrids

No hybrid of Lepidozamia peroffskyana is documented, either with Lepidozamia hopei, whose range lies more than 1,000 km to the north, or with the Macrozamia that share part of its habitat.

Possible confusion

In the field the usual confusion is with the Macrozamia, especially Macrozamia communis, the burrawang of New South Wales. In most Macrozamia the leaflets arise from the edges of the leaf axis and carry a pronounced, sometimes coloured callus where they join it; those of Macrozamia communis also end in a sharp point. Macrozamia cones have a stalk and their scales end in long spine-like appendages, unlike those of Lepidozamia peroffskyana (PACSOA).

The other possible confusion is with Lepidozamia hopei, whose leaflets are 15 to 30 mm wide with 15 to 30 veins (Flora of Australia).

Taxonomy

Lepidozamia peroffskyana is an accepted name in The World List of Cycads, the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP, Kew, the database behind POWO) and the Australian Plant Census. It is the type species of Lepidozamia, which Eduard Regel described in 1857 together with the species, from cultivated material in the Imperial Botanic Garden in St Petersburg. The holotype is kept in the herbarium of St Petersburg (LE); according to The World List of Cycads, Regel’s figures are illustrations, not separate types, and no wild collector or locality is attached to the name. The page of publication is given as 184–185 by The World List of Cycads and 182 by the WCVP.

A year later, in Australia, Charles Moore and Ferdinand von Mueller described the same plant as Macrozamia denisonii, later moved to Encephalartos (1859) and to Lepidozamia (1875). The Dutch botanist Miquel reduced Lepidozamia to a section of Macrozamia and made the combination Macrozamia peroffskyana in 1868. L.A.S. Johnson’s revision of the Australian Zamiaceae (1959) restored Lepidozamia as a separate genus, the treatment followed today. All these names are synonyms; Regel’s, the oldest, has priority. Molecular work on the weevils that pollinate Australian cycads notes that Lepidozamia is closer to the African Encephalartos than to Macrozamia (Hsiao et al., 2023).

Etymology and history

The epithet peroffskyana honours Count Vasily Alekseevich Peroffsky (Perovsky, 1794–1857), governor of Orenburg Province in Russia and patron of the St Petersburg Botanical Garden, where the type plant was grown (Haynes, 2022, quoted by The World List of Cycads; the Flora of Australia also names him as a benefactor of the garden). The genus name combines the Greek lepidos, “a scale”, with the genus name Zamia (The World List of Cycads; ANPSA).

The species thus had a European history before an Australian one: it was in cultivation in Russia before it was described in its own country. The Flora of Australia cites as its first illustration Regel’s figures of 1857, and notes that it is “locally cultivated as an ornamental”.

Common names

ANBG and the Flora of Australia give “scaly zamia” and “pineapple cycad”, references to the scaly trunk; ANPSA uses “scaly or pineapple zamia”, and the Queensland WildNet database and the Australian Plant Census use “shining burrawang”. The last name can mislead: “burrawang” refers above all to Macrozamia communis.

In the wild

Lepidozamia peroffskyana grows over about 700 km of coastal and near-coastal country, from near Taree on the mid-north coast of New South Wales to near Gympie, north of Brisbane (PACSOA); the Flora of Australia gives “the ranges NW of Brisbane to the Manning River district”. ANBG places it from sea level to about 1,000 m, in wet sclerophyll forest on sheltered slopes and in gullies, on rainforest margins and in coastal forest on stabilised sand dunes.

It often forms large, dense stands under a eucalypt canopy, where the leaves of neighbouring plants overlap; PACSOA found it abundant at up to 700 m around Dorrigo, with about 2,000 mm of rain a year. Climate data compiled by PACSOA for the New South Wales part of its range show about ten frost days a year at Taree, at the southern end, where the July minimum reached at least once a week is 1.3 °C (34 °F). The plant is adapted to bushfires: new leaves, and sometimes cones, appear soon after a fire.

The pollination of Lepidozamia peroffskyana is one of the best studied among cycads. Hall and colleagues (2004) showed that host-specific Tranes weevils complete their life cycle in the male cones and visit the female cones in large numbers: female cones from which insects were excluded had a pollination rate of essentially zero, while those from which only wind was excluded were pollinated normally, and wind-borne pollen was not consistently recorded beyond 2 m from a shedding male cone. A study of two populations in New South Wales (Ornduff, 1989) found that not all mature plants cone in a given season, and that individuals of each sex cone at intervals of several years. Kangaroos and possums eat the fleshy seed coat and rats eat the kernels; seedlings are numerous around female plants, but few reach maturity (PACSOA).

Conservation status and regulation

Lepidozamia peroffskyana is not considered threatened. It is listed as Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List, in an assessment by J.D. Bösenberg published in 2022, which replaced a 2010 assessment by K.D. Hill (The World List of Cycads, GBIF and Crossref, checked on 31 October 2026). PACSOA notes that it grows in large stands in state forests, national parks and vacant Crown land and is not considered at risk. In Queensland it is classed as “special least concern” under the Nature Conservation Act 1992; it is not listed under the federal EPBC Act (WildNet, checked on 31 October 2026).

It has been listed in CITES Appendix II since 4 February 1977, with annotation #4 in the version adopted at CoP20, in force since 5 March 2026: international trade in plants needs permits, but seeds, pollen and seedlings or tissue cultures grown in vitro in sterile containers are exempt. In the European Union it falls under Annex B of Regulation (EC) No 338/97, in the list set by Commission Regulation (EU) 2026/1383, applicable since 29 June 2026 (Species+, checked on 31 October 2026). The United Kingdom, the United States and Australia apply CITES through their own legislation. Buy seed-grown plants of known origin and check the rules in force before any purchase abroad.

Growing Lepidozamia peroffskyana

Lepidozamia peroffskyana is one of the easiest cycads: ANBG and ANPSA describe it as undemanding if drainage is good, able to withstand long dry periods and needing little attention. PACSOA calls it probably the most widely cultivated New South Wales cycad, needing no special treatment in the garden or in a container.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

  • Light: filtered sun or partial shade. It can be grown in full sun but needs protection from afternoon sun to avoid scorched fronds (ANBG); Will Kraa (1993) found that it tolerates full sun quite well but grows poorly in dense shade.
  • Soil: sandy loam, slightly acid to neutral (ANBG), always free-draining. French growers report yellowing (chlorosis) on chalky soil.
  • Watering and feeding: regular watering in the growing season, reduced in winter (PACSOA). The sources differ on feeding: ANBG says it needs no fertiliser, PACSOA recommends moderate applications. When new leaves appear, the plant needs plenty of water, otherwise they droop and harden with kinks in the axis (Kraa).
  • Growth: slow at first, then by flushes, once a year in established plants; Kraa measured 50 to 60 mm of trunk a year on large garden plants, and ANPSA says an attractive plant can be had in three or four years from seed in Australia. PACSOA, by contrast, calls it fast-growing.
  • Frost: ANBG says it tolerates light frosts (see Cold hardiness).

Container cultivation

ANBG describes it as a great container plant and an excellent indoor plant in a well-lit position. In cool climates it is best grown in a large tub, overwintered frost-free in a conservatory or cold glasshouse, and moved into the sun only gradually in spring. Kraa found that seedlings in his heavy garden soil did better in pots until they were reasonably large.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

Lepidozamia peroffskyana is one of the most widely grown cycads in botanic gardens: BGCI PlantSearch (queried on 31 October 2026) lists it in more than eighty gardens. A BGCI entry shows that a garden has declared the species, not that a living plant is there today.

  • United Kingdom: the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh lists a plant accessioned in 1933 (19330218) in its Garden Explorer (updated 18 October 2026); its glasshouses are closed for restoration. In Belfast, the Tropical Ravine of the Botanic Gardens houses two large plants; the female produced a huge cone in 2017 that stayed infertile for lack of a male plant, and one plant that lost all its leaves during building work has since recovered (Friends of Belfast Botanic Gardens). Kew, Glasgow, RHS Wisley and Birmingham also declare the species in BGCI. No plant growing in the open ground is documented in Britain.
  • United States: about twenty-five gardens declare it in BGCI. In California, Lotusland names it among the notable plants of its cycad garden, and the Huntington, the San Diego Botanic Garden, the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley, the Los Angeles County Arboretum, Descanso Gardens and the Gardens of Golden Gate Park declare it; in Florida, Montgomery Botanical Center, Naples Botanical Garden, the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens and the Edison and Ford Winter Estates. Further north it is grown under glass, for example at Longwood Gardens, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and the Lincoln Park Conservatory in Chicago.
  • Australia: about fifteen gardens declare it in BGCI, among them the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan, the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria in Melbourne, where it grows in outdoor beds according to the garden’s census (consulted on 19 October 2026), the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra, Kings Park in Perth, the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens in Hobart and the botanic gardens of Brisbane, Adelaide and Cairns.

Propagation

Lepidozamia peroffskyana is propagated from seed only, as it does not normally produce offsets (PACSOA). The seeds germinate easily without pretreatment (ANPSA) but slowly: about six months, sometimes a year, for fresh seed, and a few more months before the first leaf (Kraa). Kraa germinates them in slightly moist vermiculite in a sealed container and pots them as soon as the root appears. Remove the fleshy coat wearing gloves. An isolated plant does not set fertile seed: a male and a female plant are needed, with hand pollination outside the range of its weevils.

Pests and diseases

Scale insects are the most common pest in cultivation, especially indoors; they can be removed by hand, by cutting off affected fronds or, according to PACSOA, treated with white oil (ANBG; Kraa). In Australia PACSOA warns against trunk-boring weevils, Melotranes internatus and Demyrsus meleoides, which breed in sick or damaged plants in the wild and, if introduced into a garden, can destroy seedlings and mature plants: their larvae dig a honeycomb of tunnels that causes the trunk to rot. In waterlogged soil the stem rots.

Cold hardiness

Lepidozamia peroffskyana is the hardier of the two Lepidozamia, but its foliage is damaged at around −5 °C (23 °F). Reports from France describe plants in the ground defoliated in hard winters and then regrowing from the trunk; no garden or institution has published a result.

Mediterranean and European experience

The following reports come from amateur growers on the French forum Fous de palmiers; they are of indicative value, not general rules.

  • A grower in Montpellier (Hérault, France) reports that his plant in the ground, unprotected for years, was completely defoliated in winter 2011–2012 by lows of −8 to −9 °C (18 to 16 °F), then produced new leaves in August 2012, without loss. In May 2014 he added that his two plants, set out young about ten years earlier in a small, windy, shaded garden on poor chalky soil, grow very slowly, have had their foliage scorched only twice and suffer from lime-induced chlorosis.
  • A grower in Concarneau (Finistère, Brittany, France) reports that his plant in the ground, without winter protection, had its leaves completely scorched in February 2012 after −5 °C (23 °F) for two or three hours, the trunk staying sound; the nearest Météo-France station, at Trégunc 5 km away, recorded −5.3 °C (22 °F) on 11 February 2012. In March 2019 he reported that the plant, sheltered under a Leptospermum scoparium, had come through winter 2017–2018, when the same station recorded −6.4 °C (20 °F) on 28 February 2018.
  • A grower in the south-eastern suburbs of Paris (France) reports that his young plant, set out in summer 2009, withstood −7 °C (19 °F) under protection in winter 2009–2010 without damage. A second small plant in a sheltered, dry corner stayed perfect after the cold spell of February 2012 (−8.5 °C, 17 °F, in the garden) but made no new leaves in three summers, for lack of warmth; he judged the species less hardy than Macrozamia communis.
  • A grower in Roussillon (France) reports that a friend’s unprotected plant was completely defoliated at −4 °C (25 °F) in winter 2009–2010; the place and growing conditions are not given.
  • A grower in Ensuès-la-Redonne (Bouches-du-Rhône, France), facing the sea, reports in April 2014 that the species “does not cope” with sun and “really needs partial shade”: it was the only one of his cycads to give a serious warning sign.

On the Italian forum Tropicamente, a grower in the Castelli Romani (Lazio, Italy) reports that his small plant spent winter 2011–2012 outdoors at −5 °C (23 °F) under a porch closed on three sides, with careful watering several days before frosts. On the same forum, two growers whose location is not given report in June 2015 that they lost seedlings after three or four years; one attributes the winter deaths to excess moisture rather than cold. Taken together, these reports suggest that a trial in the ground is possible on the Mediterranean coast and in the mildest, most sheltered Atlantic gardens, in partial shade and very free-draining soil, accepting defoliation in hard winters; the Brittany reports are the closest guide for south-west England.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

In the PACSOA journal Palms & Cycads (1993), the nurseryman Will Kraa writes that Lepidozamia peroffskyana was undamaged by direct frost down to −6 °C (21 °F) in his nursery, whose location is not given. ANBG says it tolerates light frosts. The Florida nursery Top Tropicals rates it for USDA zones 9 to 10 and calls it frost-sensitive, and Canarius, a nursery in the Canary Islands, gives a minimum winter temperature of −5 to 5 °C (23 to 41 °F); these are commercial ratings, not dated observations. In Britain the species is documented only under glass. No failure caused by heat or drought is documented: direct sun causes the most damage.

Toxicity and precautions

Yes, Lepidozamia peroffskyana is poisonous. ANPSA recalls that its seeds, like those of other cycads, contain toxic compounds that have caused deaths in people and livestock. Cycads of the family Zamiaceae contain toxic glycosides (cycasin, macrozamin), from which methylazoxymethanol is derived; for this species, a laboratory study described cell death in the brain and gut of mice fed a seed preparation (Gobe, 1994). The large red seeds can attract children and dogs: pick them up as soon as they fall, wear gloves to clean them and, if any part has been eaten, contact a poison centre, a doctor or a vet without delay.

Traditional uses

According to ANPSA, Aboriginal people developed a method of vigorous leaching to remove the toxins from cycad seeds, which were an important part of their diet. The comparative study of Brit Asmussen (2011) deals with Aboriginal processing of the seeds of Australian cycads, Lepidozamia included. No use specific to Lepidozamia peroffskyana is documented in the sources consulted for this page.

Frequently asked questions

Is Lepidozamia peroffskyana hardy in the UK?

Not reliably. No plant in the open ground is documented in Britain, where it is grown under glass. In France, plants in the ground have survived hard winters in Brittany and on the Mediterranean coast, losing their leaves at −5 °C (23 °F) and regrowing; only the mildest, most sheltered gardens could attempt a trial.

How do you tell Lepidozamia peroffskyana from a Macrozamia?

By the leaflets and the cones. In Lepidozamia the leaflets arise from the top of the leaf axis and have no coloured callus, and the cones have no stalk; in most Macrozamia the leaflets arise from the edges of the axis, often with a callus, and the cone scales end in spines.

What is the difference from Lepidozamia hopei?

Mainly the width of the leaflets: 5 to 13 mm in Lepidozamia peroffskyana, 15 to 30 mm in Lepidozamia hopei. Lepidozamia peroffskyana comes from the subtropics and tolerates more cold; Lepidozamia hopei, from the tropics, grows much taller.

Does Lepidozamia peroffskyana tolerate full sun?

It depends on acclimatisation. It can grow in sun, but its leaves scorch easily, especially in the afternoon or after a winter in shade. Filtered sun or partial shade suits it best.

Why is my Lepidozamia peroffskyana turning yellow?

Often because of the soil or the light. Growers report chlorosis on chalky soil, and a sudden move into sun also yellows and scorches the leaves.

Is Lepidozamia peroffskyana dangerous to dogs?

Yes. Like all cycads it is poisonous, especially its large red seeds. Pick up fallen seeds and see a vet at the slightest suspicion that one has been eaten.

Further reading on Succulentes

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Regel, E. (1857). [Description of Lepidozamia peroffskyana.] Bulletin de la Société impériale des naturalistes de Moscou 30(1): 184–185, fig. 21. [Protologue of the genus and of the species.]
  • Johnson, L.A.S. (1959). The families of cycads and the Zamiaceae of Australia. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, ser. 2, 84(1): 64–117. [Revision recognising Lepidozamia as an Australian genus.]
  • Ornduff, R. (1989). Size distribution and coning behaviour of the Australian cycad Lepidozamia peroffskyana. Australian Journal of Ecology 14(2): 241–245. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1442-9993.1989.tb01432.x [Peer-reviewed article: coning frequency in two populations.]
  • Kraa, W. (1993). [Cultivation of Lepidozamia.] Palms & Cycads 39. [Nurseryman’s observations, reproduced on the PACSOA Wiki.]
  • Gobe, G.C. (1994). Apoptosis in brain and gut tissue of mice fed a seed preparation of the cycad Lepidozamia peroffskyana. Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications 205(1): 327–333. https://doi.org/10.1006/bbrc.1994.2668 [Peer-reviewed article: toxicity of the seeds in mice.]
  • Hill, K.D. (1998). Cycadophyta. In: Flora of Australia 48. ABRS/CSIRO, Melbourne. [Reference treatment of the Australian cycads, online as the Flora of Australia profiles.]
  • Hall, J.A., Walter, G.H., Bergstrom, D.M. & Machin, P. (2004). Pollination ecology of the Australian cycad Lepidozamia peroffskyana (Zamiaceae). Australian Journal of Botany 52(3): 333–343. https://doi.org/10.1071/BT03159 [Peer-reviewed article: pollination by Tranes weevils.]
  • Asmussen, B. (2011). “There is likewise a nut…” a comparative ethnobotany of Aboriginal processing methods and consumption of Australian Bowenia, Cycas, Macrozamia and Lepidozamia species. Technical Reports of the Australian Museum, Online 23(10): 147–163. https://doi.org/10.3853/j.1835-4211.23.2011.1575 [Traditional preparation of cycad seeds.]
  • Bösenberg, J.D. (2022). Lepidozamia peroffskyana. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T41996A48692036. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-1.RLTS.T41996A48692036.en [Current assessment, Least Concern; reference from Crossref.]
  • Haynes, J.L. (2022). Etymological compendium of cycad names. Phytotaxa 550(1): 1–31. [Etymology of the epithet, via The World List of Cycads.]
  • Hsiao, Y., Oberprieler, R.G., Zwick, A., Zhou, Y.-L. & Ślipiński, A. (2023). Museomics unveil systematics, diversity and evolution of Australian cycad-pollinating weevils. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 290: 20231385. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.1385 [Peer-reviewed article: pollinating weevils and relationships of Lepidozamia.]
  • Calonje, M., Stevenson, D.W. & Osborne, R. (2026). The World List of Cycads, version 2026.08.15. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21958524 [Reference checklist.]