Zamia angustifolia

Zamia angustifolia is a small cycad of the West Indies, found in eastern Cuba and in the Bahamas, where it grows only on the island of Eleuthera. This species of the genus Zamia, named by Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin in 1791 and one of the oldest names in the genus, owes its epithet to its very narrow leaflets, about half a centimetre wide, which give it an almost grass-like look; its stem is underground. It is often met in books and collections under the name Zamia angustissima, now a synonym, and is known in the Bahamas as the Eleuthera coontie. It is rated Vulnerable by the IUCN.

Key facts about Zamia angustifolia

  • Accepted name: Zamia angustifolia Jacq. (1791), accepted by The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15) and by GBIF; POWO could not be consulted directly
  • Former names and synonyms: Zamia angustissima Miq. (1851), Zamia angustifolia var. angustissima (Miq.) Regel (1878), Zamia yatesii Miq. (1851), Zamia multifoliolata A.DC. (1868), Zamia guggenheimiana Carabia (1941), Palmifolium angustifolium (Jacq.) Kuntze (1891) and other combinations
  • Family: Zamiaceae, order Cycadales; Zamia pumila complex of the West Indies
  • Common names: Eleuthera coontie (English, Bahamas); Cuban Spanish names given only by a compilation source (see Common names)
  • Natural range: Bahamas (Eleuthera), eastern Cuba (Guantánamo, Oriente, Santiago de Cuba)
  • IUCN status: Vulnerable (VU), criterion A2c, assessment published in 2022
  • CITES and other protection: CITES Appendix II (whole genus, since 1977; seeds exempt under annotation #4); Annex B in the European Union
  • Documented hardiness: no measured data (see Cold hardiness)
  • Light and soil: in the wild, coastal thickets on loose sand and pine woodland in the Bahamas, dry forests in eastern Cuba
  • Habit and adult size: underground stem up to 10 cm across; leaves up to 1 m; leaflets up to 25 cm long and 0.5 cm wide
  • In the UK, US and Australia: 13 accessions of 2010–2011 at Montgomery Botanical Center (Florida), listed under this name with a contradictory note; declared to BGCI by about ten American gardens and by Sydney and Cairns; no British record
  • Toxicity: no data specific to the species; treat it as poisonous, like all cycads (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Zamia angustifolia

Two features matter: leaflets as narrow as blades of grass, and dark cones. The Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve, the Bahamas National Trust reserve on Eleuthera, describes the species as follows:

  • Stem: underground, vertical, tuber-like, “20–50” long (the unit is not given) and up to 10 cm in diameter.
  • Leaves: pinnate, up to 1 m long, covered with rusty brown hairs when young.
  • Leaflets: narrow, up to 25 cm long (usually less) and 0.5 cm wide, with a slightly toothed tip and an entire, occasionally irregular margin.
  • Male cones: solitary or in groups, up to 8 cm long and 2 cm in diameter.
  • Female cone: solitary, up to 13 cm long and 4 cm in diameter, entirely covered with reddish hairs.

Daniel Ward (2016), citing Dennis Stevenson (1987), adds that true Zamia angustifolia has dark grey to black cones ending in a short, tapering sterile tip, whereas the female cones of the closely related Zamia integrifolia are reddish brown, with a truncate or blunt top.

Hybrids

No hybrid, natural or garden-made, has been documented. Zamia integrifolia also grows on Eleuthera, but according to the field surveys of Calonje and colleagues (2013), the ranges of the two species on the island do not overlap.

Possible confusion

Zamia angustifolia belongs to the Zamia pumila complex, a group of closely related Zamia of the West Indies and Florida that are hard to tell apart. The main confusions are:

  • Zamia integrifolia, the Florida coontie, also native to the Bahamas and Cuba: leaflets usually broader, female cones reddish brown with a truncate top. In 1933 the botanist John Kunkel Small applied the name Zamia angustifolia to plants of the Everglades hammocks with leaflets 3 to 6 mm wide, without having seen their female cones; according to Ward (2016), no plant identifiable as true Zamia angustifolia is known to South Florida botanists, and narrow-leaved Florida plants belong to Zamia integrifolia.
  • The other species of the complex, such as Zamia pumila, Zamia portoricensis or Zamia erosa, have broader leaflets.
  • Zamia lucayana, the third Bahamian species, is endemic to Long Island; each island holds a single species except Eleuthera, where Zamia angustifolia and Zamia integrifolia live side by side without mixing (Calonje and colleagues, 2013).
  • In the Bahamas, the Zamia of Andros and New Providence, once reported as Zamia angustifolia, are now placed in Zamia integrifolia, which Calonje and colleagues (2013) record on Abaco, Andros, Eleuthera, Grand Bahama and New Providence. The same authors note that Zamia tenuis, known from a single plant grown at Berlin in the early 19th century and reported for the Bahamas, was once treated as a synonym of Zamia angustifolia and is now regarded as a synonym of Zamia integrifolia.

Taxonomy

Zamia angustifolia is an accepted name according to The World List of Cycads and GBIF; POWO could not be consulted directly. Jacquin published the name in the third volume of his Collectanea (pages 263 to 265), dated 1789 but issued in 1791, and illustrated it the following year in his Icones Plantarum Rariorum (plate 636, 1792). In 1980 James Eckenwalder, who mistakenly cited the Icones as the place of original publication, designated this plate as lectotype; since the illustration postdates the name, The World List of Cycads treats this designation as a neotype.

During the 19th century the species received several other names, all synonyms today according to The World List of Cycads: Zamia angustissima and Zamia yatesii (Miquel, 1851), Zamia multifoliolata (Alphonse de Candolle, 1868), Regel’s varieties angustissima and yatesii (1878), Kuntze’s combinations in the genus Palmifolium (1891) and finally Zamia guggenheimiana Carabia (1941). What this means for the reader: a plant labelled “Zamia angustissima” is, in current taxonomy, a Zamia angustifolia.

The species belongs to the Zamia pumila complex, which forms a monophyletic group in the Caribbean (Calonje and colleagues, 2013, after Stevenson, 1987) and whose Bahamian populations have been studied with molecular markers (Salas-Leiva and colleagues, 2017). One question remains open: according to Calonje and colleagues (2013), it is uncertain whether the narrow-leaved plants of Cuba belong to the same taxon as those of Eleuthera, and further studies including the Cuban populations are needed. The transcriptome study of Lindstrom and colleagues (2024) included a sample from Eleuthera.

Etymology and history

The epithet comes from the Latin angustus, “narrow”, and folium, “leaf”, for the narrow leaflets (Haynes, 2022, cited by The World List of Cycads).

In 1889, in their provisional list of the plants of the Bahama Islands, John Gardiner and L. J. K. Brace recorded a single Zamia, under the name Zamia angustifolia and the local name “bay-rush”: its pith yielded a starch “fit for food and for laundry purposes”, sold in Nassau by people from Andros and from outlying districts of New Providence. Those populations are now attributed to Zamia integrifolia. The World List of Cycads holds photographs of plants on Eleuthera taken by Michael Calonje in 2010 and 2011, during the field surveys published in 2013.

Common names

In English, the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve on Eleuthera calls it the “Eleuthera coontie”. The name “bay-rush” of 1889 applied to plants now placed in Zamia integrifolia. For Cuba, the compilation encyclopedia LLIFLE gives the Spanish names “yuquilla de ratón”, “guayacancillo” and “camarón guayaru”, without stating their origin: they should be treated with caution.

In the wild

The World List of Cycads records the species in the Bahamas (Eleuthera) and in eastern Cuba (provinces of Guantánamo and Santiago de Cuba, and the former province of Oriente). On Eleuthera it grows in coastal dry broadleaf evergreen formations, in low shrubland on unconsolidated Holocene sand, and in pine woodland (Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve). During field surveys carried out between December 2009 and July 2011, Calonje and colleagues (2013) found it only on coastal sand dunes, with just 150 plants in two sites, within an area of 0.34 km² near Gregory Town. In Cuba, according to the same authors citing González Géigel (2003), it is relatively abundant.

Like all cycads, it forms coralloid roots that host nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria. No data on its pollinators have been published.

Conservation status and regulation

Zamia angustifolia is rated Vulnerable (VU) on the IUCN Red List under criterion A2c (population reduction linked to habitat decline), in the assessment by J.D. Bösenberg published in 2022, which confirms the category already given in 2010 (The World List of Cycads; GBIF gives the same category; the Red List itself could not be consulted). In the Bahamas, Calonje and colleagues (2013) consider it the cycad of highest conservation concern, because of the small number of adult plants, the small extent of its habitat and the extensive housing development in the area; they consider that its overall status cannot be settled without studying the Cuban populations. During the same surveys, seeds and seedlings of Zamia angustifolia and Zamia integrifolia were collected for ex situ conservation, following the protocols of Montgomery Botanical Center.

Like all Zamia except Zamia restrepoi, Zamia angustifolia falls under CITES Appendix II, where the genus has been listed since 4 February 1977. International trade in the plants requires an export permit issued by the country of origin. The listing carries annotation #4: seeds, pollen, seedlings and tissue cultures obtained in vitro and transported in sterile containers are not covered by CITES. In the European Union the species falls under Annex B of Regulation (EC) No 338/97, whose current list is set by Regulation (EU) 2026/1383, applicable since 29 June 2026.

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

Growing Zamia angustifolia

According to the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve, the species has entered the horticultural trade, but no verified growing advice specific to it has been published. The figures sometimes published (compost, fast growth, early coning, a frost threshold) rest on no identifiable source and are not repeated here. Its habitat simply points to a plant of sandy, well-drained soils, in coastal thickets or open pine woodland in the Bahamas and in dry forests in Cuba.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

No dated outdoor trial has been published. The San Diego nursery Jungle Music counts Zamia angustifolia, with Zamia furfuracea and Zamia loddigesii, among the “less tropical species” that are “more tolerant of cold weather”, unlike species such as Zamia skinneri, which need “very tropical conditions”; it gives no temperature, and given the long use of the name for narrow-leaved Florida coonties, it is not certain either that its plants are the true Eleuthera and Cuban species. By deduction from its habitat, a frost-free site with very free-draining, sandy soil in full sun to light shade is the closest match.

Container cultivation

No container trial has been published. A deep pot with a sandy, very free-draining compost, bright light and a frost-free winter are the precautions that follow from its habitat and underground stem; they are deductions, not tested results.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

In short: well represented in American and Australian collections, but labels deserve caution.

  • United States: Montgomery Botanical Center (Coral Gables, Florida) lists 13 accession numbers under Zamia angustifolia in its online catalogue, from 2010 and 2011 (20100182 to 20100184, 20110148 to 20110157 and 20110318), with the remark “Accepted name: Zamia stricta”, which contradicts The World List of Cycads; a single accession (20140380) under Zamia stricta carries the opposite remark. These notes should be read with caution. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden lists the species in its online catalogue (consulted in October 2026). Fairchild, Montgomery, the Huntington, San Diego Botanic Garden, Naples Botanical Garden, Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, Longwood Gardens, the New York Botanical Garden, the National Tropical Botanical Garden, Honolulu Botanical Gardens and the Botanical Garden of the University of Hawaii at Hilo declare it to BGCI (queried on 24 October 2026).
  • Australia: the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney lists it in its online catalogue and in BGCI; Cairns Botanic Gardens declares it to BGCI.
  • United Kingdom: no record in BGCI or in the online catalogues of British gardens (Edinburgh, Cambridge, Chelsea Physic Garden).

In its range, the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve on Eleuthera also declares it to BGCI. A BGCI declaration shows that a garden held the plant at some point, not that it is alive today, and given the history of the name in Florida, a plant labelled Zamia angustifolia without a Bahamian or Cuban provenance may be a narrow-leaved Zamia integrifolia.

Propagation

No verified data specific to the species. Like all Zamia, it has separate male and female plants: both are needed to obtain seed, and in cultivation hand pollination is usually necessary. Seeds are exempt from CITES under annotation #4, but they must come from plants of legal origin.

Pests and diseases

No pest or disease specific to the species has been documented. In cultivation, scale insects are, as in all cycads, the commonest pest.

Cold hardiness

No measured data on cold tolerance exist for Zamia angustifolia. The figure of about −3 °C (26.6 °F) sometimes given for adult plants, like USDA zones 9b to 10, rests on no dated observation or verifiable source and is not adopted here. The species lives in a maritime tropical to subtropical climate, in eastern Cuba and the Bahamas.

Mediterranean and European experience

No growing result has been published in France, in the ground or in a pot, and no dated frost episode concerns the species. In Italy it is listed, as Zamia angustifolia var. angustissima, in the glasshouses of the Naples Botanical Garden (Sibilio, Delpinoa, published in 2019), and a grower in Ravenna showed the new leaves of his “Zamia angustissima” on the Italian forum Tropicamente in 2012 and 2014, without describing his growing conditions or winter results.

For comparison only, and without transferring the result to this species: at the Jardin zoologique tropical in La Londe-les-Maures, in the Var (southern France), a Zamia integrifolia, a species of the same complex, survived −7 °C (19.4 °F) in February 2012, with damage to its foliage. This Mediterranean observation shows what a related coontie endured, not what Zamia angustifolia can withstand.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

No dated outdoor report has been published for these countries. Apart from the general remark of Jungle Music quoted above, the gardens that hold it in Florida, California, Hawaii and Australia do not say how it is grown or how it reacts to cold.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity study specific to Zamia angustifolia has been published. The risk is, however, documented in the genus and in other cycads: Zamia contain toxic glycosides (cycasin, macrozamin), from which methylazoxymethanol is derived, and for Zamia furfuracea the ASPCA cites cycasin and BMAA, a neurotoxic amino acid, with vomiting, bloody diarrhoea and liver damage in dogs, cats and horses; the seeds are the most dangerous part. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, treat the plant as poisonous: keep seeds and leaves out of reach of children and animals, and wear gloves to clean seeds. If any part is swallowed, contact a poison centre, a doctor or a vet straight away.

Traditional uses

In the Bahamas, according to the Leon Levy Native Plant Preserve, the species has no known medicinal or cultural use, but it has entered the horticultural trade. The “bay-rush” starch sold in Nassau in 1889 came from plants of Andros and New Providence now attributed to Zamia integrifolia. For Cuba, no traditional use is documented by a verifiable source.

Frequently asked questions

Are Zamia angustissima and Zamia angustifolia the same plant?

Yes, according to The World List of Cycads: Zamia angustissima, described by Miquel in 1851, is a synonym of Zamia angustifolia, as is Regel’s variety angustissima.

How can it be told from Zamia integrifolia?

By its very narrow leaflets, about half a centimetre wide, and its dark grey to blackish cones with a short tapering tip; Zamia integrifolia usually has broader leaflets and reddish-brown female cones with a truncate top.

Is the narrow-leaved coontie of Florida a Zamia angustifolia?

No, according to Ward (2016): the name was applied to Everglades plants in 1933, but no true Zamia angustifolia is known from South Florida; narrow-leaved Florida plants belong to Zamia integrifolia.

Where does it grow?

In the Bahamas, only on the island of Eleuthera, and in eastern Cuba (Guantánamo, Santiago de Cuba).

How hardy is it?

Nobody knows: no measured data exist. The figure of −3 °C (26.6 °F) sometimes quoted is not documented. In the UK, a heated glasshouse or a frost-free conservatory is the prudent choice.

Is it endangered?

Yes. The IUCN rates it Vulnerable; in the Bahamas, only about 150 plants were counted in two sites near Gregory Town, in an area under development pressure (Calonje and colleagues, 2013).

Is it poisonous?

It should be assumed so. No analysis has been made of this species, but the cycads studied contain serious toxins, especially in the seeds.

Further reading on Succulentes

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Jacquin, N.J. von (1791). Zamia angustifolia. Collectanea ad botanicam, chemiam, et historiam naturalem spectantia 3: 263–265. Vienna. [Protologue; not consulted, cited by The World List of Cycads.]
  • Jacquin, N.J. von (1792). Icones Plantarum Rariorum 3: pl. 636. Vienna. [Illustration designated as type; not consulted.]
  • Eckenwalder, J.E. (1980). Taxonomy of the West Indian cycads. Journal of the Arnold Arboretum 61: 701–722. https://doi.org/10.5962/bhl.part.8542 [Type designation; cited by The World List of Cycads.]
  • Gardiner, J. & Brace, L.J.K. (1889). Provisional list of the plants of the Bahama Islands. Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 41: 349 onwards (Zamia on page 352). [“Bay-rush” and its starch; digitised text read.]
  • Calonje, M., Meerow, A.W., Knowles, L., Knowles, D., Griffith, M.P., Nakamura, K. & Francisco-Ortega, J. (2013). Cycad biodiversity in the Bahamas Archipelago and conservation genetics of the threatened Zamia lucayana (Zamiaceae). Oryx 47(2): 190–198. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605312000129 [Field surveys and conservation assessment; full text read.]
  • Ward, D.B. (2016). Keys to the flora of Florida: 32, Zamia (Zamiaceae). Phytologia 98(3): 170–178. [Full text read.]
  • Salas-Leiva, D.E., Meerow, A.W., Calonje, M. et al. (2017). Shifting Quaternary migration patterns in the Bahamian archipelago: evidence from the Zamia pumila complex at the northern limits of the Caribbean island biodiversity hotspot. American Journal of Botany 104(5): 757–771. https://doi.org/10.3732/ajb.1700054 [Abstract read.]
  • Lindstrom, A., Habib, S., Dong, S., Gong, Y., Liu, J., Calonje, M., Stevenson, D. & Zhang, S. (2024). Transcriptome sequencing data provide a solid base to understand the phylogenetic relationships, biogeography and reticulated evolution of the genus Zamia L. (Cycadales: Zamiaceae). Annals of Botany 134(5): 747–768. https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcae065 [Sample from Eleuthera listed in Table 1; full text consulted.]
  • Sibilio, G. (2019). The greenhouses of the Botanical Garden of Naples, Italy. Delpinoa 56-57: 69–103. [Naples Botanical Garden publication; read.]
  • Bösenberg, J.D. (2022). Zamia angustifolia. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T42185A69843707. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-1.RLTS.T42185A69843707.en [Current assessment (VU); reference taken from The World List of Cycads and Crossref, Red List page not consulted.]
  • Haynes, J.L. (2022). Etymological compendium of cycad names. Phytotaxa 550(1): 1–31. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.550.1.1 [Source of the etymologies given 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. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21958524 [Reference checklist; consulted directly.]