Cycas papuana

Cycas papuana is a cycad of the savanna woodlands of southern New Guinea, known from the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, from the plains of the Fly River to the Bensbach River, and from Wasur National Park on the Indonesian side of the border. This species of the genus Cycas was described as early as 1876 by Ferdinand von Mueller, then treated for more than half a century as part of Cycas circinalis (as Cycas circinalis subsp. papuana) before regaining species rank. Its bluish new leaves, spineless petiole and small leaflets link it to the cycads of northern Australia. The IUCN lists it as Least Concern.

Key facts about Cycas papuana

  • Accepted name: Cycas papuana F.Muell. (1876), accepted by The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15) and by GBIF; POWO could not be consulted
  • Former names and synonyms: Cycas circinalis subsp. papuana (F.Muell.) J.Schust. (1932); Cycas rumphii f. papuana (F.Muell.) Kaneh. (1938); placed in the synonymy of Cycas armstrongii by de Laubenfels and Adema (1998)
  • Family: Cycadaceae, order Cycadales
  • Common names: no English name attested; “warnara” (language not identified)
  • Natural range: southern New Guinea (Western Province of Papua New Guinea; Indonesian Papua); The World List of Cycads adds Prince of Wales Island, in the Torres Strait (Queensland), a record not confirmed elsewhere
  • IUCN status: Least Concern (LC), assessment by J.D. Bösenberg dated 2020 (Red List version 2023-1); LC according to GBIF
  • CITES and other protection: CITES Appendix II (seeds exempt under annotation #4); Annex B in the European Union
  • Documented hardiness: no data (see Cold hardiness)
  • Light and soil: in the wild, savanna woodland on flat ground; very free-draining soil advised by the PACSOA; no cultivation results
  • Habit and adult size: trunk up to 2.8 m; leaves 1 to 1.3 m long
  • In the UK, US and Australia: declared in BGCI PlantSearch by The Huntington (California), Marie Selby Botanical Gardens (Florida) and Cairns Botanic Gardens (Queensland); no British record
  • Toxicity: no data specific to the species; treat it as poisonous, like all Cycas (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Cycas papuana

Cycas papuana is recognised by its bluish new leaves that turn bright green, its long and completely unarmed (spineless) petiole, its numerous short, flat leaflets and its small orange male cones. The description below follows Lindström, Hill and Stanberg (2009).

  • Trunk: up to 2.8 m tall.
  • Leaves: semi-glossy, 1 to 1.3 m long, slightly keeled in section, with 180 to 250 leaflets and a white and orange down that falls as they expand; the rachis usually ends in a spine; petiole 30 to 40 cm long, hairless and spineless.
  • Median leaflets: 8 to 13 cm by 6 to 9 mm, flat-edged, with the midrib raised on both surfaces.
  • Cataphylls (the scale leaves that protect the growing point): narrow and pungent, with a thick orange down.
  • Male cones: ovoid and orange, 15 to 20 cm long; microsporophylls small (about 24 mm) with a rudimentary apical spine.
  • Megasporophylls (the fertile leaves of female plants): 16 to 20 cm long, with brown down, carrying 2 to 6 hairless ovules; lanceolate blade 3.5 to 5 cm long, regularly toothed (14 to 20 spines 2 to 4 mm long), ending in a spine 8 to 15 mm long.
  • Seeds: flattened-ovoid, 32 to 35 mm by 25 to 29 mm, with an orange-brown coat, no fibrous layer and no spongy tissue.

Hybrids

No hybrid is documented for this species.

Possible confusion

Its closest relatives live on the other side of the Arafura Sea. According to Lindström, Hill and Stanberg (2009), Cycas papuana is very close to Cycas armstrongii, from Australia’s Northern Territory, which has shorter leaves (55 to 90 cm), shorter petioles (10 to 25 cm) and fewer leaflets (160 to 220). Its long, spineless petiole also recalls Cycas conferta, another Northern Territory species, whose leaves are shorter (70 to 110 cm), whose leaflets are more crowded (4 to 7 mm apart on the rachis) and whose seeds are larger (36 to 40 mm). Hill (1996) notes that Cycas papuana has sturdier male cones than Cycas conferta, with longer, upcurved microsporophylls.

In New Guinea itself, Cycas apoa and Cycas scratchleyana have a spiny petiole and new leaves that are not bluish, according to the key of Lindström and colleagues (2009). Cycas campestris, from around Port Moresby, belongs to the same group as Cycas papuana (Hill 1994); the characters that separate them were not found in the sources consulted.

Taxonomy

Cycas papuana is a name accepted by The World List of Cycads and by GBIF; POWO could not be consulted. Lindström, Hill and Stanberg (2009) place it in section Cycas, subsection Endemicae, the group of the Australian cycads, whose seeds have neither spongy tissue nor a fibrous layer. In his revision of the Australian Cycas, Hill (1996) places it more precisely in series Armstrongianosae, which he had created in 1994 and whose type species is Cycas armstrongii. All the other species of the series live in northern Australia: he cites Cycas armstrongii, Cycas conferta, Cycas orientis and Cycas canalis for the Northern Territory, Cycas lane-poolei for Western Australia and Cycas xipholepis for Queensland, while Cycas papuana, from the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, “also belongs with this group”. According to Hill, all these species grow on deep, lateritised sandy soils on fairly flat ground, in savanna woodland or forest.

The name has been placed in several ways. Julius Schuster reduced it in 1932 to a subspecies of Cycas circinalis, and Kanehira made it a form of Cycas rumphii in 1938, both within very broad concepts of those species that have since been abandoned. De Laubenfels and Adema (1998) placed it in the synonymy of Cycas armstrongii. Hill (1994), in his study of the Cycas media group in New Guinea, reinstated it as a species, while describing Cycas campestris, and designated its lectotype; Lindström and colleagues (2009) confirmed this treatment, which The World List of Cycads follows. For the reader, older records of Cycas circinalis or Cycas rumphii from south-western New Guinea may refer to this species.

Etymology and history

The epithet recalls its first collection in Papua, then the British territory of New Guinea, according to Lindström and colleagues (2009) and Haynes (2022).

Ferdinand von Mueller described the species in 1876 in his Descriptive Notes on Papuan Plants, from material collected “on the Fly River” by the Italian explorer Luigi Maria D’Albertis. The two sheets in the Melbourne herbarium do not bear D’Albertis’s name, only Mueller’s annotations; the more complete one (MEL 68056) was chosen as lectotype by Hill (1994), a fragment having been sent to Kew by Mueller himself. No history of its introduction into cultivation is documented.

Common names

No English common name is attested. The only vernacular name recorded is “warnara”, cited by Bailey (1909) and then by Bonta and Osborne (2007), in an unidentified language (Lindström et al. 2009).

In the wild

Cycas papuana grows in the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, from the floodplains of the Fly River and the surroundings of Daru to at least the Bensbach River, and across the border in Indonesia, in Wasur National Park near Merauke. It is a scattered but widespread, sometimes locally abundant element of savanna woodland on flat ground (Lindström et al. 2009).

The World List of Cycads also records Prince of Wales Island, in the Torres Strait, which belongs to Queensland. This Australian record appears neither in Hill’s 1996 revision of the Australian cycads, which places the species in New Guinea only, nor in the online Flora of Australia, which has no profile for the name, nor in Species+, the official CITES database, which lists only Indonesia and Papua New Guinea: it remains to be confirmed. Pollination and phenology are not documented.

Conservation status and regulation

The IUCN lists Cycas papuana as Least Concern (LC), in the assessment by J.D. Bösenberg dated 2020 and published in version 2023-1 of the Red List, which replaces an assessment by K.D. Hill (2010); the Red List data relayed by GBIF confirm the LC category (consulted on 24 October 2026). Lindström and colleagues (2009) considered the species abundant and apparently not threatened, while citing the Near Threatened (NT) category used in 2003 and pointing to strong pressure on land around Wasur National Park, which makes its protection there uncertain. The Red List itself could not be consulted directly.

Like every species in the genus except Cycas beddomei, Cycas papuana is listed in CITES Appendix II, where the family Cycadaceae has been included since 4 February 1977. The listing carries annotation #4 (CoP20 version, in force since 5 March 2026): seeds, pollen, seedlings or tissue cultures obtained in vitro and transported in sterile containers, and cut flowers of artificially propagated plants, are not subject to CITES, whereas international trade in the plants themselves requires an export permit. Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States apply CITES through their own national legislation; in the European Union the species is in Annex B of Regulation (EC) No 338/97, whose annexes in force are set by Commission Regulation (EU) 2026/1383, applicable since 29 June 2026. Species+, the official CITES database, names the species and confirms this status.

This general information does not replace the official texts: check the rules in force before buying or exchanging plants, ask the seller for proof of provenance and prefer plants raised from seed in cultivation.

Growing Cycas papuana

In short: no institution has published growing results for Cycas papuana. The wiki of the Palm and Cycad Societies of Australia (PACSOA) simply advises a very free-draining soil, in keeping with the tropical monsoon climate of its habitat.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

Outdoors, it can only be considered in a frost-free tropical or near-tropical climate. Cairns Botanic Gardens, in tropical Queensland, declare the species in BGCI PlantSearch, without saying whether the plant grows in the open or under glass. Its habitat, savanna woodland on flat, sandy ground, suggests full sun and a very free-draining soil, but this is a deduction from the wild and from the PACSOA’s brief advice, not a published trial.

Container cultivation

In the United Kingdom and other temperate regions, it is a plant for a heated glasshouse, grown in a pot; this is a deduction from its native climate, not a published result. On the French forum Fous de palmiers, a grower reported in December 2010 that seeds of the species had germinated indoors, with no later report published. The Jardin zoologique tropical at La Londe-les-Maures, in the south of France, has published no observation on it.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

In short: rare in collections, and documented only through declarations to the BGCI PlantSearch database (consulted on 24 October 2026), which show that a garden has listed the species at some point, not that a living plant is there today.

  • United States: The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, in San Marino (California), and Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, in Sarasota (Florida), declare the species in BGCI. It does not appear in the online catalogues of Montgomery Botanical Center or Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.
  • Australia: Cairns Botanic Gardens (Queensland) declare it in BGCI. It does not appear in the Garden Explorer of the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney or of the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan, nor in the online census of the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria.
  • United Kingdom: no record.

No first-hand report from a private grower in these countries could be read.

Propagation

Like all Cycas, Cycas papuana is dioecious: a male and a female plant are needed for fertile seed. Sowing is the only documented method, through the germination report mentioned above; no germination time or rate has been published. Seeds are exempt from CITES under annotation #4.

Pests and diseases

No pest or disease specific to the species is documented. In cultivation, scale insects, including Aulacaspis yasumatsui, can attack any Cycas.

Cold hardiness

No cold-tolerance data exist for Cycas papuana. The PACSOA wiki places it in a tropical monsoon climate, and none of the sources consulted says whether the plant can take frost.

Mediterranean and European experience

No cultivation result has been published in Europe, in the open ground or in a pot, and no dated frost episode concerns the species.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

No cold reading and no dated growing report were found, either on forums or from botanic gardens. The gardens that declare the species do not say whether it grows outdoors. Treat it as frost-tender; no USDA zone can be given without a documented trial.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity analysis specific to Cycas papuana has been found. The risk is, however, well documented in the genus: Cycas tissues, and the seeds above all, contain cycasin, which is converted during digestion into methylazoxymethanol, toxic to the liver and nervous system, along with a neurotoxic amino acid, BMAA. The ASPCA lists the sago palm (Cycas revoluta) as poisonous to dogs, cats and horses. Until proven otherwise, treat the plant as poisonous: keep seeds and leaves out of reach of children and pets, and wear gloves to clean the seeds. If any part is swallowed, contact a poison centre, a doctor or a vet straight away.

Traditional uses

The PACSOA wiki states that local people use crushed seeds to treat wounds, without citing a source or a particular community; no ethnobotanical publication consulted confirms it. Given the toxicity of cycad seeds, this mention is in no way a recommendation.

Frequently asked questions

Where does Cycas papuana grow?

In southern New Guinea: the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, from the Fly River to the Bensbach River, and Wasur National Park on the Indonesian side. Its presence on Prince of Wales Island (Queensland) remains to be confirmed.

Is Cycas papuana a subspecies of Cycas circinalis?

No. Schuster treated it that way in 1932, but it is now accepted as a species, related to the cycads of northern Australia rather than to Cycas circinalis, which grows in India.

What is its closest relative?

Cycas armstrongii, from Australia’s Northern Territory, from which it differs in its longer leaves and petioles and its greater number of leaflets.

How can it be recognised?

By its long, spineless petiole, its bluish new leaves, its short leaflets 6 to 9 mm wide and its small orange male cones.

Is it endangered?

No, according to the IUCN, which lists it as Least Concern; it is abundant in the Fly River savannas, but pressure on land around Wasur National Park is a concern.

Can it be grown outdoors in the UK?

No, almost certainly not. No cold data exist, its native climate is tropical and monsoonal, and no outdoor trial has been published outside the tropics.

Is it poisonous?

It must be assumed so. No toxicity analysis specific to the species exists, but the Cycas studied contain dangerous toxins, especially in the seeds.

Further reading on Succulentes

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Lindström, A.J., Hill, K.D. & Stanberg, L.C. (2009). The genus Cycas (Cycadaceae) in Indonesia. Telopea 12(3): 385–418. doi:10.7751/telopea20095826 [Description (pp. 413–415), lectotype, range, status; full text consulted.]
  • Mueller, F. von (1876). Descriptive Notes on Papuan Plants 4: 71–72. Melbourne. [Original description; not consulted directly, cited after The World List of Cycads and Lindström et al. (2009).]
  • Hill, K.D. (1994). The Cycas media group (Cycadaceae) in New Guinea. Australian Systematic Botany 7(6): 527–541. doi:10.1071/SB9940527 [Reinstatement of the species, lectotypification, series Armstrongianosae; abstract only (Crossref).]
  • Hill, K.D. (1996). A taxonomic revision of the genus Cycas (Cycadaceae) in Australia. Telopea 7(1): 1–64. doi:10.7751/telopea19963040 [Series Armstrongianosae and the place of Cycas papuana in this group (pp. 4 and 31), comparison with Cycas conferta; full text consulted.]
  • Bösenberg, J.D. (2023). Cycas papuana. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2023: e.T42079A69154308. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2023-1.RLTS.T42079A69154308.en [Current assessment (dated 2020, published in 2023); reference checked on Crossref, LC category relayed by GBIF; Red List page not consulted (access blocked).]
  • de Laubenfels, D.J. & Adema, F. (1998). A taxonomic revision of the genera Cycas and Epicycas gen. nov. (Cycadaceae). Blumea 43(2): 351–400. [Very broad species concept; not consulted directly, cited after The World List of Cycads and Lindström et al. (2009).]
  • Haynes, J.L. (2022). Etymological compendium of cycad names. Phytotaxa 550(1): 1–31. doi:10.11646/phytotaxa.550.1.1 [Source of the etymologies taken up by The World List of Cycads; not consulted directly.]
  • Calonje, M., Stevenson, D.W. & Osborne, R. (2026). The World List of Cycads, version 2026.08.15. Montgomery Botanical Center, Coral Gables. doi:10.5281/zenodo.21958524 [Reference checklist; consulted directly.]