Cycas pschannae

Cycas pschannae is a large, tree-like cycad endemic to the Andaman Islands, the Indian archipelago in the Bay of Bengal, where it is common in coastal forest close to the sea. This species of the genus Cycas was described in 2015 by R.C. Srivastava and Lal Ji Singh, of the Botanical Survey of India, from a tree that had been growing for decades in the botanic garden at Howrah, near Kolkata. Its best mark is a pair of horn-like teeth on the female megasporophylls. It is the accepted name under which The World List of Cycads now places Cycas andamanica, published the same year, while the IUCN Red List still includes both in Cycas sainathii.

Key facts about Cycas pschannae

  • Accepted name: Cycas pschannae R.C.Srivast. & L.J.Singh (2015), accepted by The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15) following the revision by Singh and Misra (2020); POWO could not be consulted directly
  • Former names and synonyms: Cycas andamanica K.Prasad, M.V.Ramana, Sanjappa & B.R.P.Rao (2015); before 2020 both names were placed under Cycas sainathii, a treatment the IUCN Red List and GBIF still follow
  • Family: Cycadaceae, order Cycadales
  • Common names: none attested, in English or in any Indian language
  • Natural range: India, Andaman Islands (North, Middle and South Andaman, according to the original description)
  • IUCN status: not evaluated under this name (NE) according to The World List of Cycads; the Red List includes it in Cycas sainathii, listed as Vulnerable (VU, assessment published in 2022)
  • CITES and other protection: CITES Appendix II (whole family; seeds exempt under annotation #4); Annex B in the European Union
  • Documented hardiness: no data (see Cold hardiness)
  • Light and soil: in the wild, coastal forest on sandy soil and the edges of lowland evergreen forest behind the beaches; no cultivation data
  • Habit and adult size: tree up to 12 m, trunk up to 30 cm across and not swollen at the base; leaves up to 205 cm long
  • In the UK, US and Australia: no botanic garden record under either name
  • Toxicity: no study specific to the species; treat it as poisonous, like all Cycas (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Cycas pschannae

Look at the female plants. The sterile, triangular upper part of each megasporophyll (the fertile leaf that carries the ovules) bears near its base two unequal lateral teeth curved like horns, and ends in a long, abruptly narrowed point. According to Srivastava and Singh (2015), this is what separates the species from its relatives. Their original description gives these characters:

  • Habit: a tree that can reach 12 m, with a trunk up to 30 cm in diameter, not swollen at the base and sometimes divided from the base into two stems.
  • Leaves: up to 205 cm long, dark green, glossy and hairless above, paler beneath, with 82 to 115 pairs of leaflets.
  • Leaflets: up to 24 cm long and 1.5 cm wide, pointed, with a single midrib.
  • Petiole: up to 65 cm long, hairless and spiny.
  • Megasporophylls: up to 45 cm long, felted and yellowish brown, carrying two to three pairs of ovules; the triangular sterile part is green and hairless beneath, has the two horn-like teeth, and ends in a point 5 to 8 cm long with an entire or toothed margin, more or less curved inwards.

The plant is dioecious. Neither the male cones nor the seeds are described in the original publication, so the cylindrical male cone, “semi-orbicular” blade and floating seeds attributed to this cycad in some online descriptions cannot be confirmed.

Hybrids

No hybrid, natural or horticultural, is documented. In the Andamans the debate is about where to draw the limits between related species, not about hybridisation.

Possible confusion

The World List of Cycads recognises three Cycas in the archipelago: Cycas zeylanica, which also grows in Sri Lanka, Cycas pschannae and Cycas dharmrajii. Srivastava and Singh compared their new species with Cycas zeylanica and with Cycas sainathii, now merged into Cycas zeylanica by The World List of Cycads, and separated it by the horn-like teeth of the megasporophylls. Cycas dharmrajii, described in 2017, is distinguished, according to the Indian news site GKToday, by a huge trunk swollen at the base and unusually branched, and by megasporophylls carrying 10 to 28 hook-like structures. The key to the cycads of the archipelago in the revision by Singh and Misra (2020) could not be read.

Taxonomy

The name was published in August 2015 in the International Journal of Current Research in Biosciences and Plant Biology (volume 2, issue 8, pages 35–37). The type (R.C. Srivastava, RCS Cy 19), kept at the Central National Herbarium in Kolkata (CAL), was taken from a tree at the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Indian Botanic Garden in Howrah, introduced from the Andamans long before it was studied.

A month later, K. Prasad, M.V. Ramana, M. Sanjappa and B.R.P. Rao published Cycas andamanica in the International Journal of Innovative Science and Research, from a plant collected in 2011 in the coastal forest of Ramnagar, on North Andaman. Both names were at first sunk into Cycas sainathii, as the earlier version of The World List of Cycads quoted on eFlora of India shows. In 2020 the revision of the cycads of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands by Lal Ji Singh and Dharam Raj Misra (Indian Journal of Forestry 43(1): 46–57) reinstated Cycas pschannae, with Cycas andamanica as its synonym, and also referred Cycas sainathii to Cycas zeylanica and Cycas darshii to Cycas sphaerica; The World List of Cycads follows them. Why pschannae rather than andamanica? According to one of the botanists involved, writing on eFlora of India, it is a matter of priority: pschannae appeared in August 2015, andamanica in September.

The IUCN Red List has not followed this revision. In the assessment published in 2022 it keeps a broad Cycas sainathii and lists Cycas pschannae, Cycas andamanica and Cycas dharmrajii as its synonyms, as the Red List data relayed by GBIF show (consulted on 24 October 2026). In practice, the same Andaman plant may therefore turn up under three different names.

Etymology and history

The epithet honours Dr Paramjit Singh Channa, then Director of the Botanical Survey of India (original description, as taken up by The World List of Cycads).

The species was discovered in a garden rather than in the wild. In 2001 a small tree at Howrah, brought from the Andamans long before and never examined closely, produced a compact cluster of yellowish-brown megasporophylls. After comparing it with the literature and the type specimens, the authors concluded that it was new to science, and in July 2014 they observed several natural populations in the Andamans. When the Indian press announced Cycas pschannae and Cycas dharmrajii in 2017, the number of cycad species known from India rose to fourteen (GKToday).

Common names

No common name is attested in English. The published sources give no Indian vernacular name for this plant.

In the wild

Cycas pschannae is endemic to the Andaman Islands: the original description records it on North, Middle and South Andaman, where it is abundant in coastal forest near the sea, on sandy soil, and along the edges of lowland evergreen forest behind the beaches. The type of Cycas andamanica, now included in the species, also came from coastal forest, between 0 and 10 m above sea level.

The World List of Cycads gives the range as “India (Andaman and Nicobar Islands)” without specifying any record from the Nicobars. Pollination and phenology have not been studied.

Conservation status and regulation

Its status depends on the name used. The World List of Cycads, which accepts the species, gives it as Not Evaluated (NE). The IUCN Red List includes it in Cycas sainathii, listed as Vulnerable (VU) in the assessment by L.J. Singh published in version 2022-1, according to the Red List data relayed by GBIF; the criteria and threats could not be read, the Red List itself being inaccessible. The original description calls the species abundant in coastal forest, and no population count has been published.

One threat in the wild is documented. Purti, Singh and Pandey (2022) recorded the cycad blue butterfly, Luthrodes pandava, in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands for the first time; its caterpillars feed on all the aerial parts of cycads, and the authors name Cycas pschannae and Cycas dharmrajii as new host plants, the endemic cycads of the islands being more susceptible than introduced species.

Like every species in the genus except Cycas beddomei, Cycas pschannae falls under CITES Appendix II, where the family Cycadaceae has been included since 4 February 1977. Annotation #4 (CoP20 version, in force since 5 March 2026) exempts seeds, pollen and tissue cultures in sterile containers, among other items, while international trade in live plants still requires permits. The United Kingdom, the United States and Australia apply CITES through their own national legislation; in the European Union it is in Annex B of Regulation (EC) No 338/97, as set by Commission Regulation (EU) 2026/1383, applicable since 29 June 2026. Species+, the official CITES database, has no entry for the species itself: its status follows from the listing of the family. This information was checked in October 2026 and does not replace the official texts.

Growing Cycas pschannae

In short: no growing experience has been published outside India. The original description says only that it can be grown as an ornamental tree, and its discovery on a tree cultivated for decades at Howrah shows that it adapts to cultivation in a tropical climate.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

The points below are deductions from its habitat, not documented results. A cycad of tropical coastal forest is likely to need constant warmth, plenty of light, a free-draining sandy soil and regular watering while it is growing. Outdoors, it can only be considered in frost-free tropical climates. Claims of salt-spray tolerance and of USDA zones 10b to 11 found online rest on no identifiable source and are not repeated here.

Container cultivation

In the United Kingdom and other temperate regions, the only realistic option is a pot in a heated glasshouse or conservatory, and its adult size will eventually restrict it to large glasshouses. No Mediterranean experience exists to guide growers.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

In short: no record under either name. Neither Cycas pschannae nor Cycas andamanica appears in the BGCI PlantSearch database or in the online catalogue of Montgomery Botanical Center (both consulted on 24 October 2026), nor in the catalogues of Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria or Cambridge University Botanic Garden checked in October 2026. No report from a private grower in these countries is documented.

Propagation

According to the original description, Cycas pschannae is propagated from seed or from bulbils, the small offsets that sometimes form on the trunk. As the plant is dioecious, seed requires a male and a female plant and, in cultivation, hand pollination. The fleshy seed coat is removed before sowing, wearing gloves. Look only for seed or plants of legal, documented origin.

Pests and diseases

In the wild, the caterpillars of the cycad blue butterfly, Luthrodes pandava, feed on the species (Purti, Singh and Pandey 2022; see Conservation status). In cultivation, cycad scales, including Aulacaspis yasumatsui, can attack any Cycas, and overwatering or poor drainage rots the trunk and roots; no cultivation problem specific to this species has been published.

Cold hardiness

No cold-tolerance data exist for Cycas pschannae. It lives in the tropical coastal forests of the Andamans, and nothing suggests that it 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 this plant under either name.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

No cold reading is documented in any country, and no hardiness zone can be given on the basis of a documented trial. Treat it as a frost-tender glasshouse plant.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity study specific to Cycas pschannae has been published, but the risk is 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. The local consumption of cooked young leaves and ovules described below does not prove the plant harmless. Treat it as poisonous and, if any part is swallowed, contact a poison centre, a doctor or a vet straight away.

Traditional uses

The original description reports several uses in the Andamans. The leaves are used in religious and cultural ceremonies, together with those of local palms (Areca triandra, Caryota mitis, Licuala peltata) and wild bananas. The crown of young leaves and the ovules are cooked and eaten as a vegetable by the settlers known as “Ranchi”, where the plant grows wild. Ripe seeds, once emptied, serve as spoons or as small boxes for lime and chewing tobacco. These uses are reported for the record and should not be copied.

Frequently asked questions

Are Cycas pschannae and Cycas andamanica the same plant?

Yes, according to The World List of Cycads, which follows Singh and Misra (2020): Cycas andamanica is a synonym of Cycas pschannae, a name published a month earlier, in August 2015.

Why is it also found as Cycas sainathii?

Because both names of 2015 were placed under Cycas sainathii before 2020, a treatment the IUCN Red List still follows. The World List of Cycads now refers Cycas sainathii itself to Cycas zeylanica.

How can it be recognised?

Mainly by its megasporophylls, whose triangular sterile part carries two unequal, horn-like teeth and ends in a long point. It is a tree up to 12 m tall, with a trunk not swollen at the base.

Where does it grow in the wild?

In the Andaman Islands, India, in coastal forest on sandy soil and along the edges of lowland evergreen forest behind the beaches.

Is it endangered?

It depends on the name. Under Cycas pschannae it has not been evaluated; the IUCN Red List includes it in Cycas sainathii, listed as Vulnerable in 2022. The caterpillars of the cycad blue butterfly attack it in the Andamans.

Can it be grown outdoors in the UK?

No. No cold data exist and it comes from the tropical coasts of the Andamans: grow it in a pot in a heated glasshouse.

Is it poisonous?

It must be assumed so. Young leaves and ovules are eaten cooked in the Andamans, but cycads contain dangerous toxins, especially in the seeds: this is not a practice to copy.

Further reading on Succulentes

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Srivastava, R.C. & Singh, L.J. (2015). A new species of Indian Cycas. International Journal of Current Research in Biosciences and Plant Biology 2(8): 35–37. [Original description; full text consulted.]
  • Prasad, K., Ramana, M.V., Rao, B.R.P. & Sanjappa, M. (2015). Cycas andamanica (Cycadaceae): a new species from Andaman Islands, India. International Journal of Innovative Science and Research 4: 473–476. [Original description of the synonym; issue 9 according to IPNI, 1 according to The World List of Cycads; not consulted, the journal’s website having disappeared.]
  • Singh, L.J. & Misra, D.R. (2020). Reappraisal of the genus Cycas L. (Cycadaceae) in Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. Indian Journal of Forestry 43(1): 46–57. doi:10.54207/bsmps1000-2021-513ETJ [Revision reinstating Cycas pschannae with Cycas andamanica as its synonym; only the abstract was read.]
  • Singh, L. (2022). Cycas sainathii. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: e.T103631608A243419871. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-1.RLTS.T103631608A243419871.en [VU assessment of Cycas sainathii in the broad sense, including Cycas pschannae; reference found on Crossref and GBIF; Red List page not consulted.]
  • Purti, N., Singh, L.J. & Pandey, A.K. (2022). New hosts for the cycad blue butterfly, Luthrodes pandava, Horsfield (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) in an island ecosystem. Feddes Repertorium 133(3): 234–243. doi:10.1002/fedr.202100024 [First record of the pest in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Cycas pschannae as a new host; peer-reviewed article, abstract read.]
  • 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.]