Zamia portoricensis

Zamia portoricensis is a small cycad with an underground stem, endemic to Puerto Rico, where it grows in the south-west and south-centre of the island on serpentine outcrops and limestone, in the understorey of semi-deciduous forest. This species of the genus Zamia is one of the island’s three Zamia, with Zamia erosa and Zamia pumila, and belongs to the Zamia pumila complex, the group of Zamia of the West Indies and Florida. The German botanist Ignaz Urban described it in 1899 from a collection made near Guánica; it was for a time reduced to a variety, as Zamia media var. portoricensis. It is one of the cycads whose pollination has been best studied in the wild. The IUCN rates it Endangered.

Key facts about Zamia portoricensis

  • Accepted name: Zamia portoricensis Urb. (1899), 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 media var. portoricensis (Urb.) J.Schust. (1932)
  • Family: Zamiaceae, order Cycadales
  • Common names: no English name; “marunguay” in Puerto Rico (original description), an Indigenous name applied to Zamia in general
  • Natural range: endemic to Puerto Rico: serpentine outcrops and limestone areas of the south-west and south-centre of the island
  • IUCN status: Endangered (EN), criteria B1ab(iii,v)+2ab(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 measurement for the species (see Cold hardiness)
  • Light and soil: understorey of open or closed semi-deciduous forest, on serpentine and limestone; in cultivation in Florida, well-drained soil in partial shade; according to a French specialist nursery, a mineral, slightly alkaline compost and a cool, dry winter
  • Habit and adult size: low plant with a thick underground stem, single or sparingly branched; leaves 70 to 80 cm long with 20 to 24 pairs of leaflets 13 to 16 cm by 5 mm in the original description
  • In the UK, US and Australia: Montgomery Botanical Center (grown outdoors), Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and many other American gardens; Cairns Botanic Gardens (Australia); no British record
  • Toxicity: no data specific to the species; treat it as poisonous (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Zamia portoricensis

It is a low plant whose thick stem stays underground, curves upwards and remains single or sparingly branched (Lazcano-Lara and Ackerman, 2018). Its leaves carry many narrow, linear leaflets with entire margins, on a petiole without prickles. The reference description with measurements available in open access is Ignaz Urban’s original Latin description (1899), based on leaves and male cones; Urban notes that he did not see the stem:

  • Leaves: 70 to 80 cm long; petiole unarmed, hairless except at the base, which has a brown, mealy covering, obtusely three-angled when dry, grooved above.
  • Leaflets: 20 to 24 pairs, opposite in the middle of the leaf or more or less alternate, linear, gradually narrowed to a blunt tip, entire, leathery, hairless, with a slightly rolled margin; median leaflets 13 to 16 cm by 5 mm, with 9 to 11 veins.
  • Male cones: cylindrical, rounded at the top, 5 cm by 1.5 cm, on a peduncle of 2 to 3 cm; scales in 8 to 10 vertical rows, with a hexagonal-elliptic face covered in brown felt.

Urban compared his new species with Zamia angustifolia, which in his view differs in a petiole rounded beneath, at most 20 pairs of leaflets 3 to 4 mm wide and of equal width up to the tip, and male cones tapering at the top on peduncles of 6 to 10 cm; and with a “Zamia tenuis” from Willdenow’s herbarium, with broader (6 to 7 mm), thicker and stiffer leaflets.

Like the other Zamia of Puerto Rico, it has seeds with a red, pink or orange fleshy coat (Lazcano-Lara and Ackerman, 2018). In the populations studied, male plants produce cones as soon as their longest leaf carries fewer than 20 leaflets, females at more variable sizes, from about twenty leaflets at El Tamarindo and about thirty at Susúa. Jungle Music, a specialist nursery in San Diego, describes plants in cultivation with an underground stem less than 30 cm (1 ft) long and green leaves 90 to 120 cm (3 to 4 ft) long with pointed, thin leaflets.

Hybrids

No hybrid has been described. Genetic studies, however, show admixture between Zamia portoricensis and Zamia pumila, the two species of the south of the island: according to Meerow and colleagues (2012), who analysed 31 microsatellite markers in ten populations, it is the only pair of Puerto Rican species between which genetic admixture appears.

Possible confusion

In Puerto Rico, confusion can only involve the island’s two other Zamia:

  • Zamia pumila, which also grows in the south, on marble and serpentine, but also on volcanic rocks of the south-central foothills (Pagán-Jiménez and Lazcano-Lara, 2013): it is the closest species genetically, and no publication gives a simple morphological character to separate them;
  • Zamia erosa, of the limestones of the north coast, separated from the two southern species by the Cordillera Central, made of metamorphosed volcanic rocks; its leaflets are much broader, with an irregularly toothed margin.

Outside Puerto Rico, the Zamia of the Zamia pumila complex look very much alike, and the identity of a collection plant depends above all on its documented provenance; Montgomery Botanical Center, for instance, keeps twelve plants labelled “Zamia aff. portoricensis”. Substrate alone does not identify it: Zamia pumila also grows on serpentine.

Taxonomy

Zamia portoricensis Urb. 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, which cites “Symb. Antill. 1: 291 (1899)”); POWO itself could not be consulted. The species was published in 1899 by Ignaz Urban in the first volume of his Symbolae Antillanae (part 2, page 291), in a chapter devoted to new species, mainly from Puerto Rico. The type is collection no. 3782 by Paul Sintenis, made in February, in flower, in the Ensenada forest near Guánica, in the south-west of the island; according to The World List of Cycads, isotypes are kept in New York (NY) and Stockholm (S).

In 1932 Julius Schuster, in his monograph of the cycads for Engler’s Pflanzenreich, made it a variety of Zamia media (Zamia media var. portoricensis), now a synonym. Among the works that restored or discussed the Zamia of the West Indies, The World List of Cycads cites Dennis Stevenson’s “Again the West Indian zamias” (1987). According to Pagán-Jiménez and Lazcano-Lara (2013), the number of species recognised in the Zamia pumila complex varies from one to nine depending on the author; the French nursery Cycadales.eu counts eight “official” species, this one included.

The genetic study by Meerow and colleagues (2012), presented as the most thorough ever devoted to a cycad at the time of publication, concludes that Zamia portoricensis is the youngest taxon on the island, judging by coalescence times and effective population sizes, and that it and Zamia pumila separated through geographical isolation, whereas Zamia erosa may stem from an independent colonisation of Puerto Rico.

Etymology and history

The epithet portoricensis refers to Puerto Rico, to which the species is endemic (The World List of Cycads, after Haynes, 2022). Ignaz Urban (1848–1931), a German botanist, described the species in the Symbolae Antillanae, his great work on the flora of the West Indies, from collections made in Puerto Rico by Paul Sintenis. His description rests only on leaves and male cones: Urban states that he did not see the stem.

Common names

No English name is attested. Urban (1899) gives the Puerto Rican name “marunguay”. According to Pagán-Jiménez and Lazcano-Lara (2013), “marunguey” (or “marungüey”, “marungueyes”) is one of the Indigenous names for the genus in Puerto Rico, not a name specific to this species; it survives in several place names on the island, such as Camino los Marungueyes, between Ponce and Peñuelas.

In the wild

Zamia portoricensis is endemic to Puerto Rico. It grows on serpentine outcrops and in limestone areas of the south-centre and south-west of the island (Acevedo-Rodríguez and Strong, 2005, quoted by Lazcano-Lara and Ackerman, 2018); Pagán-Jiménez and Lazcano-Lara (2013) speak of discontinuous areas of metamorphosed limestone (marble) and serpentine. Krieg and colleagues (2023) state that the known populations grow mostly on dry limestone soils. The type collection comes from the Ensenada forest, near Guánica.

Lazcano-Lara and Ackerman (2018) studied two populations on the serpentine of the south of the island. The first, in the municipality of Sabana Grande, along the El Tamarindo road, grows in the understorey of a low semi-deciduous forest (under 6 m), partly open, on a steep slope where heavy rain washes away the leaf litter. The second, in the Susúa State Forest (municipality of Yauco), lives under a tall (over 12 m), closed semi-deciduous forest, on almost flat ground that accumulates organic matter. At both sites Zamia portoricensis is the most abundant element of the understorey: four plots of 25 m by 20 m held 5,689 plants in total, 50 to 80% of them seedlings and juveniles.

Reproduction and pollination

According to Lazcano-Lara and Ackerman (2018), the cycle usually begins in late October with the first male cones; female cones are receptive from January to February and, if pollinated, hold their seeds until they open, around November. Urban had already noted a collection in flower in February.

Pollination is carried out by a small beetle specialised on Zamia, Pharaxonotha portophylla, described in 2008 by Franz and Skelley. Plants and insects depend on each other: the beetles feed only on pollen and male cone tissue, probably breed there and raise their larvae there; receptive female cones give off scents that mimic those of the males and attract pollen-covered insects, without any proven reward. Seeds fall near the mother plant, and no animal disperser has been identified with certainty for the Zamia of Puerto Rico.

The study by Lazcano-Lara and Ackerman (2018), titled “Best in the company of nearby males”, showed that the sexes are randomly distributed in the populations, that the sex ratio of coning plants is male-biased, and that female reproductive success, highly variable (on average 44.7% of ovules turned into seeds and 19 seeds per cone), is higher when females are surrounded by more males than females and falls with distance to the nearest male, the effect becoming clear beyond about 190 cm. The authors see a possible Allee effect: pollinator movements between plants appear to be limited. They also cite work by Krieg and colleagues (2017) showing that males have a higher photosynthetic capacity and females better water-use efficiency.

Conservation status and regulation

Zamia portoricensis is rated Endangered (EN) on the IUCN Red List under criteria B1ab(iii,v)+2ab(iii,v), in the assessment by J.D. Bösenberg published in 2022 (The World List of Cycads; category confirmed by GBIF; the Red List page could not be consulted). These criteria denote a species with a restricted range and a decline in habitat quality and in the number of adults; the previous assessment, by Stevenson (2010), already rated it Endangered (Lazcano-Lara and Ackerman, 2018). The 2003 IUCN action plan even rated it Critically Endangered (CR) under the same criteria, with fewer than 500 plants, a slight decline and reproductive failure as the main threat; it had been listed as Vulnerable on the 1997 Red List of plants. The same plan described it as known from only two localities, where annual visits over ten years had revealed neither seed production nor any sign of a pollinator. These older data should be set against later work: the pollinating beetle, Pharaxonotha portophylla, was described in 2008, and in 2018 four plots at Sabana Grande and Susúa held 5,689 plants, 50 to 80% of them seedlings and juveniles, with females bearing on average 19 seeds per cone. According to Krieg and colleagues (2023), the extent and size of the populations have declined in recent decades because of habitat destruction, the growth of the global plant trade and agricultural pollution.

The two populations studied in 2018 are healthy, with a high proportion of seedlings and juveniles; but according to Lazcano-Lara and Ackerman (2018), citing a 2015 thesis, recruitment is very limited or absent in most populations of the species. The Susúa State Forest holds one of the two populations studied.

Like all Zamia except Zamia restrepoi, which is in Appendix I, Zamia portoricensis is covered by the listing of the genus in CITES Appendix II, in force since 4 February 1977. Annotation #4 exempts seeds, pollen, seedlings and tissue cultures obtained in vitro and transported in sterile containers; 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+ has its own entry for Zamia portoricensis, which confirms this status (checked on 11 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 portoricensis

Cultivation of the species is best documented at Montgomery Botanical Center, in Coral Gables near Miami, Florida, where it grows outdoors: Krieg and colleagues (2023) studied male plants there with an average age of 9.5 years, grown in well-drained soil in partial shade, with supplementary watering on top of rainfall, in a subtropical climate (mean annual temperature 25 °C, or 77 °F; about 1,570 mm of rain a year). Under these conditions the plants produce cones. Jungle Music, in San Diego, describes it as fairly easy to grow in frost-free areas, in sun or partial sun.

Simon Lavaud, of the French specialist nursery Cycadales.eu, places Zamia portoricensis in his group of Zamia from Florida and the Caribbean, which he considers easy: species that tolerate temperatures close to freezing, cope well with Mediterranean-type winters and drought, and almost all come from limestone habitats. For this group he recommends:

  • a mineral, free-draining compost, about 80% mineral matter, slightly to strongly alkaline (a minimum of lime seems essential to him); any type of water;
  • in winter, 1 to 10 °C (33.8 to 50 °F) with daytime rises to 15 to 20 °C (59 to 68 °F), keeping the compost fairly dry but never completely parched;
  • in summer, 15 to 20 °C (59 to 68 °F) at night and 25 to 30 °C (77 to 86 °F) by day, up to 40 °C (104 °F) with generous watering;
  • at least four to six months a year of summer temperatures.

These are recommendations from experience for a group of species, not results obtained with Zamia portoricensis (Lavaud, 2023).

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

The species grows outdoors in southern Florida, at Montgomery Botanical Center, in well-drained soil and partial shade. In other frost-free or nearly frost-free climates it would need the same conditions: a free-draining, preferably limy soil, light shade and a drier winter. No outdoor result has been published for Mediterranean climates.

Container cultivation

Its small size suits a pot. In temperate climates, grow it in a mineral, limy compost, give it full summer warmth, and overwinter it frost-free, cool and on the dry side, as advised for the Caribbean Zamia group.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

In short: well represented in American collections, recorded in one Australian garden, absent from British records.

  • United States: Montgomery Botanical Center (Coral Gables, Florida) grows it outdoors and lists five accession numbers in its online catalogue, from 1998 and 2003 according to their numbers, plus twelve plants labelled “Zamia aff. portoricensis” from 2008; Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (Miami) lists it in its online catalogue; BGCI also records it at Naples Botanical Garden and Marie Selby Botanical Gardens (Florida), The Huntington (San Marino), the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley and San Diego Zoo’s botanical gardens (California), the Missouri Botanical Garden, the New York Botanical Garden, Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the Lincoln Park Conservatory in Chicago and several others (catalogues and BGCI queried on 25 October 2026).
  • Australia: Cairns Botanic Gardens (Queensland), according to BGCI; no record in the online catalogue of the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney.
  • United Kingdom: no record in BGCI.

A BGCI declaration shows that a garden held the plant at some point, not that it is alive there today. In Europe, the botanic garden of Naples listed it in its Califano glasshouses in its 2012–2013 seed list (no. 1495), but not in the editions from 2014–2015 onwards.

Propagation

The plant is dioecious: a male and a female plant are needed and, outside Puerto Rico, where the pollinating beetle is absent, hand pollination. The study by Lazcano-Lara and Ackerman (2018) shows how much the proximity of the sexes matters: in the wild, females more than about 2 m from a male produce fewer seeds. No germination data specific to the species have been published. Seeds are exempt from CITES under annotation #4, but they should come from legally sourced cultivated plants.

Pests and diseases

No pest or disease specific to the species has been documented. For the Caribbean Zamia, Cycadales.eu stresses the risk of root rot in cold, waterlogged compost, avoided with a very mineral mix and reduced watering in winter; scale insects are, as in all cycads, the most common pest in cultivation.

Cold hardiness

There is no measurement of the cold tolerance of Zamia portoricensis. The only indication is that of Cycadales.eu for the Caribbean Zamia as a whole, which “all tolerate temperatures close to zero”; only Zamia integrifolia is credited there with sub-zero temperatures.

Mediterranean and European experience

No in-ground planting has been reported in France, and no dated frost episode concerns the species. At the Jardin zoologique tropical in La Londe-les-Maures (Var, on the French Riviera), there is no observation of this species; the only reference point in the complex is a Zamia integrifolia from Florida, the hardiest species of the group, which survived −7 °C (19.4 °F) in February 2012 with foliage damage. Nothing indicates that Zamia portoricensis is as hardy: for readers in Mediterranean-type climates such as California or southern Australia, it is safer to overwinter it frost-free until trials show otherwise.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

In southern Florida it grows outdoors at Montgomery Botanical Center, under a subtropical climate; no cold episode affecting it has been documented. Trebrown, a British nursery, gives it USDA zone 9b, a commercial rating, not a measured result. In the UK it needs a frost-free glasshouse or conservatory.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity study specific to Zamia portoricensis 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, with vomiting, bloody diarrhoea and liver damage; 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 specific to Zamia portoricensis is documented with certainty. Zamia were, however, an important resource in the West Indies: according to Pagán-Jiménez and Lazcano-Lara (2013), starch grains from their underground stems have been found at archaeological sites in Puerto Rico (including Vieques), the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Saba, Trinidad and Aruba, showing their importance to the pre-Columbian inhabitants of these islands; the starch does not reveal which species was eaten. These uses required long processing to remove the toxins and must never be imitated.

The article by Pagán-Jiménez and Lazcano-Lara (2013) concerns Zamia pumila: place names derived from “marunguey” led to the discovery of wild populations of that species on volcanic rocks in the south-centre of the island, not of Zamia portoricensis.

Frequently asked questions

Where does Zamia portoricensis grow?

Only in Puerto Rico, in the south-west and south-centre of the island, in the understorey of semi-deciduous forest on serpentine and limestone, for example in the Susúa State Forest and near Sabana Grande. The type was collected near Guánica.

How can it be told from Zamia erosa?

By its leaflets and its origin. Those of Zamia portoricensis are narrow (about 5 mm in the original description) and entire; Zamia erosa, of the limestones of the north of the island, has much broader leaflets with an irregularly toothed margin.

How is it related to Zamia pumila?

It is its closest relative in Puerto Rico. Both grow in the south of the island, and genetic studies show admixture between them; they are thought to have separated through geographical isolation.

Is its petiole spiny?

No, according to the original description, which calls it unarmed, hairless and mealy only at the base.

What pollinates it?

A small beetle, Pharaxonotha portophylla, which breeds in the male cones and is attracted to the female cones by their imitation of the male scent. Females more than about 2 m from a male produce fewer seeds.

Is it endangered?

Yes. The IUCN rates it Endangered (2022) because of its restricted range and the decline of its habitat and of the number of adults; in most populations recruitment is very low, even though the two populations studied in 2018 were healthy.

Can it be grown outdoors?

In frost-free climates, yes: it grows outdoors at Montgomery Botanical Center in southern Florida. Elsewhere, grow it in a pot and keep it frost-free in winter; a specialist nursery ranks it among the easy Caribbean Zamia, which tolerate temperatures close to freezing, but no cold measurement exists for the species.

Is it poisonous?

It must be assumed so. No analysis concerns the species, but the cycads studied contain serious toxins, especially in the seeds.

Further reading on Succulentes

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Urban, I. (1899). Species novae, praesertim portoricenses. Symbolae Antillanae 1(2): 291. [Original description; text read in the Internet Archive scan and in the copy distributed by The Cycad Society.]
  • Lazcano-Lara, J.C. & Ackerman, J.D. (2018). Best in the company of nearby males: female success in the threatened cycad, Zamia portoricensis. PeerJ 6: e5252. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.5252 [Full text read.]
  • Krieg, C.P., Gosetti, S., Watkins, J.E., Griffith, M.P. & McCulloh, K.A. (2023). Reproductive phases coincide with changes in morphology and photosynthetic physiology in an endangered cycad species. Conservation Physiology 11: coad020. https://doi.org/10.1093/conphys/coad020 [Relevant passages read.]
  • Meerow, A.W., Francisco-Ortega, J., Calonje, M., Griffith, M.P., Ayala-Silva, T., Stevenson, D.W. & Nakamura, K. (2012). Zamia (Cycadales: Zamiaceae) on Puerto Rico: asymmetric genetic differentiation and the hypothesis of multiple introductions. American Journal of Botany 99(11): 1828–1839. https://doi.org/10.3732/ajb.1200494 [Abstract read.]
  • Pagán-Jiménez, J.R. & Lazcano-Lara, J.C. (2013). Toponymic data helps to reveal the occurrence of previously unknown populations of wild Zamia pumila L. on volcanic substrates in south central Puerto Rico. Ethnobiology Letters 4: 52–58. https://doi.org/10.14237/ebl.4.2013.9 [Full text read.]
  • Franz, N.M. & Skelley, P.E. (2008). Pharaxonotha portophylla (Coleoptera: Erotylidae), new species and pollinator of Zamia (Zamiaceae) in Puerto Rico. Caribbean Journal of Science 44(3): 321–333. [Cited by Lazcano-Lara and Ackerman (2018); not consulted.]
  • Schuster, J. (1932). Cycadaceae. In: Engler, A. (ed.), Das Pflanzenreich IV.1 (Heft 99). [Combination Zamia media var. portoricensis, p. 158; not consulted.]
  • Stevenson, D.W. (1987). Again the West Indian zamias. Fairchild Tropical Garden Bulletin 42(3): 23–27. [Cited by The World List of Cycads; not consulted.]
  • Donaldson, J.S. (ed.) (2003). Cycads. Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN/SSC Cycad Specialist Group, Gland and Cambridge. [Table 6.1 and text on the West Indies; read.]
  • Bösenberg, J.D. (2022). Zamia portoricensis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T42117A69835475. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-1.RLTS.T42117A69835475.en [Current assessment, EN; reference given by The World List of Cycads and checked on Crossref; the Red List page could not be consulted.]
  • Stevenson, D.W. (2010). Zamia portoricensis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2010: e.T42117A10653088. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2010-3.RLTS.T42117A10653088.en [Earlier assessment, EN according to Lazcano-Lara and Ackerman (2018); reference checked on Crossref, not consulted.]
  • Lavaud, S. (2023). Comment cultiver les Zamia en climat tempéré. Cycadales.eu. [Growing advice for groups of species; read directly.]
  • Haynes, J.L. (2022). Etymological compendium of cycad names. Phytotaxa 550(1): 1–31. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.550.1.1 [Compendium 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.]