Zamia lecointei

Zamia lecointei is a cycad of Amazonia, known from Brazil (Pará), Colombia (Amazonas) and Venezuela (Amazonas), where it grows on well-drained sandy soils between 100 and 300 m, in open places or in the understorey of secondary vegetation. Described in 1915 by the botanist Adolpho Ducke from plants collected on the Rio Erepecuru, a tributary of the Trombetas, this species of the genus Zamia has received several other names, including Zamia obidensis and Zamia jirijirimensis, now treated as synonyms. It has no above-ground trunk and carries two to four leaves 1 to 2.5 m long with narrow leaflets. The IUCN rates it Least Concern (2022 assessment).

Key facts about Zamia lecointei

  • Accepted name: Zamia lecointei Ducke (1915), accepted by The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15), by GBIF and by the World Checklist of Vascular Plants on which POWO is based; POWO could not be consulted directly
  • Former names and synonyms: Zamia obidensis Ducke (1922), Zamia jirijirimensis R.E.Schult. (1953), Zamia ulei subsp. lecointei (Ducke) Ducke (1935)
  • Family: Zamiaceae, order Cycadales
  • Common names: no name attested, in English or in any language of its range
  • Natural range: Brazil (Pará), Colombia (Amazonas), Venezuela (Amazonas; also Bolívar according to the Flora de Colombia), between 100 and 300 m
  • IUCN status: Least Concern (LC), 2022 assessment (an earlier assessment dates from 2010)
  • 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 data (see Cold hardiness)
  • Light and soil: in the wild, well-drained sandy soils, in open places or in the understorey of secondary vegetation (Flora de Colombia); in cultivation, warm, humid conditions and a free-draining, neutral to acid compost are advised for its group
  • Habit and adult size: underground, tuberous stem 5 to 8 cm across (up to 10); 2 to 4 leaves 1 to 2.5 m long (Flora de Colombia)
  • In the UK, US and Australia: University of Hawaii at Hilo (BGCI); no British or Australian record
  • Toxicity: no data specific to the species; treat it as poisonous, like all cycads (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Zamia lecointei

In short, it is an Amazonian Zamia without an above-ground trunk, with a few long leaves and narrow, linear-lanceolate, slightly sickle-shaped leaflets, entire or with a few inconspicuous teeth near the tip. The description below comes from the cycad treatment of the Flora de Colombia (Stevenson, 2001), which can be read online; Ducke’s original description (1915) and the paper “Cycads of Colombia” (Stevenson, 2004) could not be consulted.

  • Stem: underground, tuberous, 5 to 8 cm in diameter (up to 10); cataphylls with a triangular base and a linear-lanceolate tip, 3 to 6 cm long and 1 to 2 cm wide.
  • Leaves: 2 to 4, upright or slightly arching, oblong, 1 to 2.5 m long; petiole terete, up to 1 m long (sometimes 2), with scattered stiff, simple prickles; rachis terete, usually without prickles, up to 1 m long, with 20 to 40 pairs of leaflets.
  • Leaflets: papery to leathery, without grooves, linear-lanceolate and slightly falcate; those in the middle of the leaf measure 30 to 40 cm long and 1 to 2 cm wide (up to 4); stalkless, with a long-acuminate tip and an entire margin or, rarely, 3 to 6 inconspicuous teeth near the tip.
  • Male cones: 2 to 6, cylindrical, yellowish to light brown, 6 to 10 cm long and 1 to 2 cm across, on a stalk 10 to 20 cm long.
  • Female cone: usually solitary, brown, 10 to 15 cm long and 3 to 5 cm across, on a stalk 5 to 8 cm long.
  • Seeds: ovoid, 3 cm long and 2 cm across, with a reddish sarcotesta.
  • Chromosomes: 2n = 16 (Caputo and colleagues, 1996, cited by the Flora de Colombia without a full reference).

Leaflet shape depends on light: plants in open places have narrower, leathery, almost entire leaflets, while understorey plants have broader, membranous leaflets that are clearly toothed, especially in their upper third. The species belongs to the Amazonian group of Zamia, in which The World List of Cycads also places Zamia ulei, of which it was for a time a subspecies. In cultivation, rely on the documented origin of a plant rather than on its label (see Possible confusion).

Hybrids

No hybrid, natural or raised in cultivation, is documented.

Possible confusion

The closest species is Zamia muricata. According to the Flora de Colombia, the two look very alike but occupy different habitats: Zamia lecointei grows in open, dry places on sandy soils and has subcoriaceous to leathery, linear-lanceolate leaflets, entire or with one to three inconspicuous teeth near the tip; Zamia muricata lives in the forest understorey on moist clay soils, with thinner, oblong-lanceolate to lanceolate, asymmetric leaflets that are clearly denticulate in their lower half. The phylogenetic study of Lindstrom and colleagues (2024) confirms that they are related: the two species form a pair, sister to Zamia orinoquiensis.

More broadly, the Zamia of Amazonia are, according to Segalla and colleagues (2023), the least understood group in the genus: ten species are accepted there (Zamia amazonum, Zamia boliviana, Zamia brasiliensis, Zamia hymenophyllidia, Zamia lecointei, Zamia lindosensis, Zamia macrochiera, Zamia poeppigiana, Zamia ulei and Zamia urep), most of which form a natural group but need taxonomic revision. The historical confusion is with Zamia ulei: Ducke himself reduced Zamia lecointei to a subspecies of it in 1935 (see Taxonomy).

Caution is needed in the trade. On the French Fous de palmiers forum, a grower who in 2012 had received two plants sold as “Zamia sp. Venezuela” and identified them as Zamia lecointei from their measurements found in 2013, when a cone appeared, that they were in fact a Ceratozamia, a genus confined to Mexico and Central America.

Taxonomy

Zamia lecointei is an accepted name according to The World List of Cycads, GBIF and the World Checklist of Vascular Plants, on which POWO is based (read on GBIF, version of 4 June 2026); POWO itself could not be consulted. The species was published in 1915 by Adolpho Ducke in the Archivos do Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro (volume 1, pages 9 and 10, plates 1 and 2).

Ducke went on to describe Zamia obidensis in 1922, in the same journal (volume 3, page 19 according to The World List of Cycads, page 20 according to the Flora de Colombia), and then, in 1935, reduced his own species to a subspecies of Zamia ulei (Zamia ulei subsp. lecointei). In 1953 the American botanist Richard Evans Schultes described Zamia jirijirimensis in the Colombian journal Mutisia, from a collection made on the Río Apaporis in Colombia. The World List of Cycads now unites these three names under Zamia lecointei, restored to species rank.

The Flora de Colombia (Stevenson, 2001) explains these groupings. In 1915 Ducke had presented his own concept of Zamia ulei, which bore little resemblance to the type of that species, described by Dammer in 1907 with ovate-lanceolate leaflets; believing that Zamia ulei had linear-lanceolate leaflets, he made Zamia lecointei a subspecies of it in 1935. This misunderstanding, discussed by Schuster in 1932, led Schultes to redescribe the plant in 1953 as Zamia jirijirimensis; but the types of the two names are identical, so Schultes’s name is a synonym. The plants of very dry, sandy soils are those that had been described under that name. As for Zamia obidensis, which Ducke presented as intermediate, it is, according to Stevenson, only a juvenile, shade form of Zamia lecointei.

Relationships. The transcriptome phylogeny of Lindstrom and colleagues (2024), which included a plant from Venezuelan Amazonas, places the species among the Amazonian Zamia, paired with Zamia muricata.

Etymology and history

The epithet honours Paul Georges Aimé Le Cointe (1870-1956), a French-born botanist who studied Brazilian Amazonia, lived at Óbidos and accompanied Adolpho Ducke when the species was discovered (The World List of Cycads, after Haynes, 2022; Flora de Colombia).

The type was collected by Ducke on 22 October 1913 on the Rio Erepecuru, in Brazil; it is kept in the herbarium of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi in Belém (MG 15027), with an isotype in Geneva (G) according to the Flora de Colombia.

Common names

No common name is attested for this species, in English or in the languages of its range.

In the wild

The World List of Cycads places Zamia lecointei in Brazil (Pará), Colombia (Amazonas) and Venezuela (Amazonas). The Flora de Colombia gives the Venezuelan states of Amazonas and Bolívar, central and southern Colombia and north-western Brazil.

According to Stevenson (2001), it usually grows on sandy, well-drained soils between 100 and 300 m, in open places or in the understorey of secondary vegetation. Like all cycads, it forms coralloid roots associated with nitrogen-fixing cyanobacteria. Its reproductive biology and pollinators are not documented.

Conservation status and regulation

Zamia lecointei is rated Least Concern (LC) by the IUCN, in an assessment by Cristina López-Gallego and Michael Calonje published in 2022 (The World List of Cycads; GBIF gives the same category). An earlier assessment, by Dennis Wm. Stevenson, was published in 2010 (reference checked on Crossref); the Red List itself could not be consulted. As early as 2001, the Flora de Colombia noted that seed production seems high, that the habitat is not threatened with destruction in the short term and that in Colombia the species is locally common, with many seedlings.

Like all Zamia except Zamia restrepoi, which is in Appendix I, Zamia lecointei is covered by the listing of the genus in CITES Appendix II, in force since 4 February 1977. Annotation #4 (the version adopted at CoP20, in force on 5 March 2026) exempts seeds, pollen, seedlings and tissue cultures obtained in vitro and transported in sterile containers, and cut flowers of artificially propagated plants; international trade in the plants themselves requires an export permit. 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. Species+, the official CITES database, names the species and confirms this status (checked on 3 October 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 cultivated seed.

Growing Zamia lecointei

No growing advice specific to Zamia lecointei has been published, and no reliable cultivation report exists: the only one, on the French Fous de palmiers forum, concerned plants that turned out to be a Ceratozamia (see Possible confusion).

Simon Lavaud, of the French specialist nursery Cycadales.eu, includes Zamia lecointei among the Zamia of the lowland forests of Central and South America, a group he rates as difficult outside the tropics because European climates are generally too cool and too dry for them. For this group he advises a free-draining, neutral to acid compost and water, night temperatures around 22 °C (72 °F), with brief drops to about 15 °C (59 °F) tolerated, daytime temperatures of 28 to 30 °C (82 to 86 °F) and air humidity of 70 to 90 per cent (Lavaud, 2023). This is advice for the whole group, not the result of trials with this species; its sandy, well-drained habitat in the wild also points to a compost that drains very freely.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

Outdoor cultivation is only conceivable in a truly tropical climate, warm and humid all year. No garden is known to grow it in the open.

Container cultivation

In temperate climates it is a plant for a heated glasshouse, conservatory or tropical growing room. Its underground stem suits a deep pot of very free-draining, neutral to acid compost; the long leaves, up to 2.5 m, need space.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

In short: one American garden; no British or Australian record.

  • United States: BGCI records it at the University of Hawaii at Hilo (queried on 25 October 2026). The online catalogue of Montgomery Botanical Center has no entry under this name.
  • United Kingdom: no record in BGCI or in the online catalogues of British gardens.
  • Australia: no record in BGCI.

Elsewhere, BGCI lists eight gardens in all: besides Hilo, the botanic gardens of the universities of Bonn and Tübingen and the Jena Botanical Garden in Germany, Fairy Lake Botanical Garden (Shenzhen) and Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in China, the Medellín Botanical Garden in Colombia and the Singapore Botanic Gardens. A BGCI declaration shows that a garden held the plant at some point, not that it is alive there today.

Propagation

No data specific to the species. Like all Zamia, it has separate male and female plants and is propagated from fresh seed; in the wild, according to the Flora de Colombia, it produces plenty of seed and seedlings are numerous. Check the identity of any batch: labelling errors are frequent among Amazonian Zamia.

Pests and diseases

No pest or disease specific to the species has been documented. In cultivation, Zamia are chiefly at risk from rot in cold, waterlogged soil and from scale insects.

Cold hardiness

No data exist on the cold tolerance of Zamia lecointei. It is a species of lowland Amazonia, and nothing suggests that it can tolerate frost. The British nursery Trebrown places it in USDA zone 10b, a commercial classification without any dated record.

Mediterranean and European experience

No cultivation result has been published in France or elsewhere in Europe, either in the ground or in a pot, and no dated frost episode concerns the species. Only a heated glasshouse is realistic, in Mediterranean-type climates such as California or southern Australia as well.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

No cold record exists. The only garden in these countries that declares it, in Hawaii, has a tropical climate. In the UK it needs a heated tropical glasshouse.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity study specific to Zamia lecointei has been published. The risk is, however, well documented in cycads: Zamia contain toxic glycosides (cycasin, macrozamin), from which methylazoxymethanol is derived, a compound toxic to the liver and nervous system, and the ASPCA cites cycasin and BMAA, a neurotoxic amino acid, for Zamia furfuracea, which it lists as toxic to 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

No use is documented for this species.

Frequently asked questions

Who was Le Cointe, after whom Zamia lecointei is named?

Paul Le Cointe (1870-1956), a French-born botanist who studied Brazilian Amazonia and accompanied Adolpho Ducke when the species was discovered in 1913.

Where does it grow?

In Amazonia: Brazil (Pará), and the Amazonas regions of Colombia and Venezuela. It grows on sandy, well-drained soils between 100 and 300 m, in open places or in the understorey of secondary vegetation.

Are Zamia obidensis and Zamia jirijirimensis different species?

No. The World List of Cycads includes them in Zamia lecointei, together with the former subspecies Zamia ulei subsp. lecointei. According to the Flora de Colombia, the first name refers to a juvenile, shade form, the second to plants of very dry, sandy soils.

How can it be told from Zamia muricata?

By its leaflets and habitat. Zamia lecointei has narrower, leathery, almost entire leaflets and grows in open places on sand; Zamia muricata has thinner, clearly denticulate leaflets and lives in the understorey on clay soils (Flora de Colombia).

Is it endangered?

No, according to the IUCN, which rated it Least Concern in 2022. In Colombia it was already described as locally common, with many seedlings, in 2001.

Can plants sold under this name be trusted?

With caution. Plants sold as Zamia lecointei have turned out to be a Ceratozamia when they produced cones; insist on a documented origin.

Is it hardy?

In all likelihood, no. No cold data exist; it is an Amazonian plant for a heated glasshouse.

Is it poisonous?

It must be assumed so. No analysis specific to the species exists, but the cycads studied contain serious toxins, mainly in the seeds.

Further reading on Succulentes

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Ducke, A. (1915). [Description of Zamia lecointei.] Archivos do Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro 1: 9–10, pl. 1–2. [Original description; cited after The World List of Cycads and the Flora de Colombia.]
  • Stevenson, D.W. (2001). Orden Cycadales. Flora de Colombia 21: 1–91. [Monograph; treatment of Zamia lecointei read in the online version of the National University of Colombia.]
  • Segalla, R., Pimenta, R.S. & Calonje, M. (2023). Zamia multidentata (Cycadales, Zamiaceae), a new arborescent species of Zamia from Acre, Brazil. Phytotaxa 598(1): 21–31. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.598.1.2 [Peer-reviewed article; full text 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 [Peer-reviewed article; full text read on PubMed Central.]
  • López-Gallego, C. & Calonje, M. (2022). Zamia lecointei. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T42165A69842381. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-1.RLTS.T42165A69842381.en [Red List assessment; reference given by The World List of Cycads and checked on Crossref; Red List page not consulted.]
  • Stevenson, D.W. (2010). Zamia lecointei. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2010: e.T42165A10671163. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2010-3.RLTS.T42165A10671163.en [Earlier assessment; DOI checked on Crossref; 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.]