Zamia cunaria

Zamia cunaria is a small cycad endemic to eastern Panama, known from the territory of the Kuna (Guna) people and the neighbouring provinces of Colón and Panamá, where it grows in secondary vegetation on clay slopes and ridges. This species of the genus Zamia, described in 1993, usually carries a single upright leaf with broad leaflets toothed towards the tip. It is named after the Kuna, who make necklaces from its pink to light red seeds, and it is rated Endangered by the IUCN.

Key facts about Zamia cunaria

  • Accepted name: Zamia cunaria Dressler & D.W.Stev. (1993), accepted by The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15) and by GBIF; POWO could not be consulted directly
  • Former names and synonyms: none
  • Family: Zamiaceae, order Cycadales
  • Common names: no English name; “obset” in the Kuna language (the female cone is “obset e sana”)
  • Natural range: Panama: provinces of Colón and Panamá, and the Kuna comarcas of Wargandí and Guna Yala (formerly San Blas)
  • IUCN status: Endangered (EN), criteria B1ab(iii,v), 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, secondary vegetation on clay soils of slopes and ridges, at 400 to 800 m
  • Habit and adult size: underground, roughly globular stem up to 10 cm across; usually one leaf (up to three) 0.5 to 1.5 m long, possibly to 2.5 m, with 3 to 12 pairs of leaflets 20 to 40 cm by 5 to 8 cm
  • In the UK, US and Australia: Montgomery Botanical Center (Florida) lists eleven accession numbers, most from 2008; also declared to BGCI by 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 cycads (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Zamia cunaria

Look for a Zamia with an underground stem that usually bears a single erect leaf, with broad leaflets toothed in their upper third. The measurements below come from the original description (Stevenson, 1993, pages 5 and 6, figure 2):

  • Stem: underground, roughly globular, up to 10 cm in diameter. Cataphylls of two kinds: ovate, 3 to 4 cm long and 4 to 5 cm wide, or needle-like, 7 to 10 cm long and 2 to 3 cm wide.
  • Leaves: usually only one at a time (sometimes three), erect, 0.5 to 1.5 m long; petiole 15 to 50 cm, sparsely to densely prickly; rachis with 3 to 12 pairs of leaflets.
  • Leaflets: oblong to oblanceolate, wedge-shaped at the base, acuminate, toothed in the upper third; the large middle leaflets are 20 to 40 cm long and 5 to 8 cm wide.
  • Male cones: cream to tan, cylindrical to ovoid-cylindrical, 4 to 6 cm long and 1 to 1.5 cm across, on a stalk 2 to 4 cm long. The scales bear pollen sacs on both faces, a feature that Stevenson then knew, among all cycads, only in three Panamanian Zamia.
  • Female cones: wine red to dark reddish brown, cylindrical to ovoid-cylindrical, 15 to 20 cm long and 5 to 7 cm across in the description (20 to 30 cm long in the key of the same paper).
  • Seeds: pink to light red, 1.5 to 2 cm long and 0.5 to 0.8 cm across.

The leaves can be larger than the description suggests: in 2010, Calonje and colleagues, citing a personal communication from Alberto Taylor, gave them a length of up to 2.5 m. They also listed features shared by Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis: hairy cone axes, a light white down and simple prickles on the petiole and rachis, uniformly tan or cream male cone scales, female cones with a blunt tip, and young leaves usually green, sometimes brown (Calonje et al., 2010). Jay Vannini, a naturalist who has grown Central American cycads in the United States and Guatemala, adds that the plant usually holds a single leaf in nature but keeps several in cultivation (Vannini, 2019).

Hybrids

No natural or garden hybrid has been documented.

Possible confusion

Several Zamia grow in eastern Panama. The two most likely to be confused with Zamia cunaria are Zamia dressleri, also found in Guna Yala and Colón, and Zamia ipetiensis, described in the same 1993 revision:

  • Zamia ipetiensis: in his key, Stevenson (1993) separates Zamia cunaria, with oblong to oblanceolate leaflets strongly toothed in the upper third and female cones 20 to 30 cm long, from Zamia ipetiensis, with oblanceolate leaflets finely toothed near the tip and female cones no longer than 10 cm. Some authors do not keep the two apart (see Taxonomy).
  • Zamia dressleri: its very broad leaflets (12 to 15 cm), deeply grooved between the veins and only 2 to 5 pairs per leaf, are quite different.

Exact provenance and photographs of the leaflets and cones remain essential for any identification.

Taxonomy

Zamia cunaria is an accepted name according to The World List of Cycads and GBIF; POWO could not be consulted directly. It was described by Robert L. Dressler and Dennis W. Stevenson in Stevenson’s 1993 revision of the Zamiaceae of Panama (Brittonia 45: 1-16). That revision recognised eleven Zamia in Panama, four of them new: Zamia cunaria, Zamia dressleri, Zamia ipetiensis and Zamia neurophyllidia. The type specimen (D.W. Stevenson et al. 1153) was collected on 18 January 1989 in Cuna Yala, in the former province of San Blas; the holotype is kept at the New York Botanical Garden (NY), with isotypes at F, FTG, K, MO, NY, PMA and U. The name has not changed since.

Its separation from Zamia ipetiensis, also from eastern Panama, is debated. The World List of Cycads accepts both species, with distinct but neighbouring ranges (Zamia ipetiensis is recorded from the provinces of Panamá and Guna Yala). In 2018, when describing Zamia paucifoliolata from Colombia, Calonje, López-Gallego and Castro compared it with Zamia pyrophylla, Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis, the species most similar to it, and treated Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis as a single entity because no diagnostic character separated them. This has not been formalised as a synonymy, so both names remain accepted, but the boundary between them is uncertain. Vannini (2019) also finds Zamia ipetiensis “mostly indistinct” from Zamia cunaria, with which it is essentially sympatric, and calls it a good candidate for critical review.

Molecular work places the species in a small, well-defined group. The transcriptome study of Lindstrom and colleagues (2024), which included a sample from Kuna Yala, recalls that Calonje and colleagues (2019) had recognised a “Cunaria clade” of four species sharing a uniform set of morphological characters: Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis on the Isthmus of Panama, and Zamia pyrophylla and Zamia paucifoliolata in western Colombia, west of the Andes. The 2024 study recovered this group as a subgroup of its clade VI.

Etymology and history

The epithet honours the Cuna, now called Kuna or Guna, an Indigenous people of Panama who live within the range of the species and use its seeds to make necklaces (Stevenson, 1993; Haynes, 2022, cited by The World List of Cycads). Robert Dressler, co-author of the name, is also commemorated by Zamia dressleri, described the same year by Stevenson, who drew on Dressler’s years of fieldwork in Panama and on an unpublished manuscript that Dressler had given him (Stevenson, 1993). Before its description, the species had already been collected in Kuna territory by W. D’Arcy, R. Dressler, G. de Nevers and F. Stier.

No history of its introduction into cultivation has been published. Vannini (2019) notes that wild-collected seed has appeared on the international market every year and is relatively inexpensive, so the species is probably now in private collections worldwide.

Common names

There is no English name: the plant is known by its scientific name. In the Kuna language it is called “obset”, and its female cone “obset e sana” (Stevenson, 1993). No Spanish name is attested.

In the wild

The World List of Cycads records the species in the provinces of Colón and Panamá and in the Kuna comarcas of Wargandí and Guna Yala, in eastern Panama. According to the original description, it grows mostly on clay soils, on slopes and ridges between 400 and 800 m, in secondary vegetation. At the time, Stevenson knew it only from Kuna territory and did not publish precise localities, for fear of collecting (Stevenson, 1993). Vannini (2019) describes it as a plant of coastal tropical rainforest on the Caribbean side of central and eastern Panama; he reports, after Michael Calonje, that it can be locally abundant and may persist at high densities in degraded habitats such as pineapple plantings, and that visitors still find it extremely common at some sites.

Stevenson considered that Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis live in two separate mountain ranges and probably descend from a common ancestor split by vicariance; he linked them with Zamia muricata of Venezuela (Stevenson, 1993). Its pollinator is not documented.

Conservation status and regulation

Zamia cunaria is rated Endangered (EN) on the IUCN Red List, in the assessment by J.D. Bösenberg published in 2022, under criteria B1ab(iii,v): a small range, with a decline in habitat quality and in the number of mature individuals (The World List of Cycads; GBIF gives the same category; the Red List itself could not be consulted). The local abundance reported by Vannini (2019) at some sites does not contradict this: the criteria concern the extent of the range and the trend of the habitat.

Like all Zamia except Zamia restrepoi, Zamia cunaria falls under CITES Appendix II, where the genus has been listed since 4 February 1977. International trade in live plants requires an export permit. The listing carries annotation #4: seeds, pollen, seedlings and tissue cultures obtained in vitro and transported in sterile containers are not covered by CITES. Seed exports remain subject to Panama’s own rules on collecting. 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 or seeds, ask the seller for proof of origin and prefer plants raised from seed in cultivation.

Growing Zamia cunaria

No growing advice specific to the species has been published by a botanical institution, but two specialist sources give useful pointers. Vannini (2019) counts Zamia cunaria among the Central American Zamia that “perform exceptionally well as pot plants throughout their lives”, and calls it a handsome, if somewhat understated, pot plant for growers short of space.

Simon Lavaud, of the French specialist nursery Cycadales.eu, places it in his group of the Zamia of Costa Rica, Panama and the lowland forests of South America, rated “difficult” outside the tropics (Lavaud, 2023). For this group, from forests where temperatures are stable all year and rainfall is high, he recommends:

  • a free-draining compost and water that are neutral to acid;
  • night temperatures around 22 °C (71.6 °F), with only brief spells at about 15 °C (59 °F) tolerated;
  • day temperatures of 28 to 30 °C (82.4 to 86 °F); most species tolerate 34 to 35 °C (93.2 to 95 °F), but heat peaks can damage new leaves;
  • high air humidity, between 70 and 90 per cent, for optimal growth;
  • in Europe, a glasshouse, conservatory, bright heated room or growth chamber, because the climate is too cool and too dry for these species even in summer.

These are recommendations from experience for a group of species, not measurements made on Zamia cunaria.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

No outdoor trial outside the tropics has been documented. In the wild the plant grows in tropical forest without frost, between 400 and 800 m; in-ground planting can only be considered in tropical gardens.

Container cultivation

Its modest size and underground stem make it suited to a pot, which is how Vannini (2019) recommends growing it. A mineral, free-draining compost, warmth all year and high humidity follow the advice above; in cool climates this means a heated glasshouse or a warm, bright room.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

In short: held by two Florida gardens and declared by one Australian garden; no British record.

  • United States: Montgomery Botanical Center (Coral Gables, Florida) lists eleven accession numbers in its online catalogue, one from 2007 (20070592), nine from 2008 (20080106 to 20080124) and an older number (2000143). Montgomery and Marie Selby Botanical Gardens (Sarasota, Florida) declare the species to BGCI (queried on 25 October 2026). Vannini (2019) grows it in his own collections in the United States and Guatemala.
  • Australia: Cairns Botanic Gardens (Queensland) declares it to BGCI.
  • United Kingdom: no record in BGCI or in the online catalogues of British gardens (Edinburgh, Cambridge, Chelsea Physic Garden).

Outside these countries, BGCI also lists Fairy Lake Botanical Garden in Shenzhen, China. A BGCI declaration shows that a garden held the plant at some point, not that it is alive today, and the sources do not say whether these plants are grown outdoors or under glass.

Propagation

No 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. For his group of lowland tropical Zamia, Lavaud (2023) warns that suboptimal conditions lead to weak growth and a risk of root rot. In cultivation, scale insects are, as in all cycads, the commonest pest.

Cold hardiness

No measured data on tolerance of cold, heat or drought exist for Zamia cunaria. It comes from the tropical hills of eastern Panama, between 400 and 800 m, without frost, and the specialist sources treat it as a warm-growing plant.

Mediterranean and European experience

No growing result has been published in France or elsewhere in Europe, in the ground or in a pot, and no dated frost episode concerns the species. Lavaud (2023), who lives in Montpellier, in southern France, compares the climates of these lowland Zamia with his own: even in July and August, the warmest months, nights around 19 °C (66.2 °F) are below what these plants need, and the air is far drier. In a Mediterranean climate, as in the UK, it is a plant for a heated glasshouse.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

No dated cold record has been published. Trebrown, a British specialist nursery, gives the species a cold hardiness zone of 10a in its catalogue, without stating the basis of this commercial rating; it should not be taken as a measured limit.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity study specific to Zamia cunaria 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. The Kuna use of the seeds for necklaces is ornamental, not food, and says nothing about their safety. 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

The only documented use is the one that gave the species its name: the Kuna of Panama make necklaces from its seeds (Stevenson, 1993; Haynes, 2022). How the seeds are prepared and how important this use is are not described.

Frequently asked questions

Why is it called “cunaria”?

In honour of the Cuna, now Kuna or Guna, an Indigenous people of Panama who live within its range and use its seeds to make necklaces.

Where does it grow?

Only in eastern Panama: the provinces of Colón and Panamá and the Kuna comarcas of Wargandí and Guna Yala, on clay slopes and ridges between 400 and 800 m.

How can it be told from Zamia ipetiensis?

With difficulty. According to Stevenson’s key (1993), Zamia cunaria has oblong to oblanceolate leaflets strongly toothed in their upper third and female cones 20 to 30 cm long, whereas Zamia ipetiensis has oblanceolate leaflets finely toothed near the tip and female cones no longer than 10 cm. Several botanists consider the separation uncertain.

Is it endangered?

Yes. The IUCN has rated it Endangered since 2022, because of its small range and the decline of its habitat, even though it remains locally common at some sites.

Are necklaces made from its seeds legal?

As far as CITES is concerned, the seeds are exempt under annotation #4. The national rules of Panama and of the importing country may still apply, so check before buying.

Can it be grown as a pot plant?

Yes. A naturalist who grows it in the United States and Guatemala considers it one of the Zamia that do best in a pot throughout their lives. It needs warmth all year, high humidity and a free-draining compost.

How much cold can it take?

Nobody knows: no measured data exist. It comes from frost-free tropical hills in eastern Panama; in the UK, grow it in a heated glasshouse or a warm room.

Further reading on Succulentes

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Stevenson, D.W. (1993). The Zamiaceae in Panama with comments on phytogeography and species relationships. Brittonia 45(1): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.2307/2806850 [Revision of the Panamanian Zamia and protologues of Zamia cunaria, Zamia dressleri, Zamia ipetiensis and Zamia neurophyllidia; full text read: description, type, habitat, Kuna names, key to the species.]
  • Calonje, M., Stevenson, D.W., Calonje, C., Ramos, Y.A. & Lindström, A.J. (2010). A new species of Zamia from Chocó, Colombia (Cycadales, Zamiaceae). Brittonia 62(1): 80–85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12228-009-9094-8 [Comparison of Zamia pyrophylla with Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis, maximum leaf length; full text read.]
  • Calonje, M., López-Gallego, C. & Castro, J. (2018). Zamia paucifoliolata, a new species of Zamia (Zamiaceae, Cycadales) from Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Phytotaxa 385(2): 85–93. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.385.2.4 [Peer-reviewed article; comparison and joint treatment of Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis.]
  • 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 Kuna Yala; Cunaria clade of Calonje and colleagues (2019) recovered within clade VI; full text consulted.]
  • Calonje, M., Meerow, A.W., Griffith, M.P., Salas-Leiva, D., Vovides, A.P., Coiro, M. & Francisco-Ortega, J. (2019). A time-calibrated species tree phylogeny of the New World cycad genus Zamia L. (Zamiaceae, Cycadales). International Journal of Plant Sciences 180(4): 286–314. [Cunaria clade; not consulted, cited after Lindstrom and colleagues (2024).]
  • Lavaud, S. (2023). Comment cultiver les Zamia en climat tempéré. Cycadales.eu. [Growing advice for groups of species; read directly.]
  • Vannini, J. (2019). Central American and Panamanian cycads in field and greenhouse. Exotica Esoterica, 17 February 2019. [Online article by a naturalist and collector; read.]
  • Bösenberg, J.D. (2022). Zamia cunaria. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T42182A69844130. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-1.RLTS.T42182A69844130.en [Current assessment (EN); 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.]