Zamia pyrophylla

Zamia pyrophylla is a cycad of the lowland rainforests of the Chocó, in Colombia, known from the Atrato valley around Quibdó, between 10 and 100 m. Described in 2010, this species of the genus Zamia is named after its orange and red young leaves, which turn green gradually from the tip towards the base. Formerly included in Zamia amazonum, it is rated Critically Endangered by the IUCN (2022 assessment).

Key facts about Zamia pyrophylla

  • Accepted name: Zamia pyrophylla Calonje, D.W.Stev. & A.Lindstr. (2010), accepted by The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15) and by GBIF; POWO could not be consulted directly
  • Former names and synonyms: no synonym; the plants were previously referred to Zamia amazonum
  • Family: Zamiaceae, order Cycadales
  • Common names: none attested, in English or in any other language
  • Natural range: Colombia, department of Chocó, Atrato valley (municipalities of Quibdó and Atrato), 10 to 100 m
  • IUCN status: Critically Endangered (CR), criteria B1ab(iii,v), assessment published in 2022
  • CITES and other protection: CITES Appendix II (seeds exempt under annotation #4); Annex B in the European Union
  • Documented hardiness: no data (see Cold hardiness)
  • Light and soil: lowland tropical rainforest; also survives in full sun in recently cleared pasture; soil not documented
  • Habit and adult size: underground stem, rarely branched, up to 10 cm across or more; 1 or 2 leaves 1.1 to 3.4 m long, with 8 to 16 pairs of leaflets (middle leaflets 24.5 to 55 cm by 4 to 7.1 cm)
  • In the UK, US and Australia: one accession, from 2010, at Montgomery Botanical Center (Florida); 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 pyrophylla

The most striking feature of Zamia pyrophylla is the colour of its young leaves, a “glowing orange and red” according to its authors, which turn green from the tip towards the base and give the plant the look of a flame. The characters below come from the original description (Calonje and colleagues, 2010), supplemented by the comparative table published in 2018 by Michael Calonje and his colleagues:

  • Stem: underground, rarely branched, globose to cylindrical, up to 10 cm across or more; cataphylls up to 8.5 cm by 3 cm.
  • Leaves: one or two at a time, most often one, 1.1 to 3.4 m long; petiole 0.75 to 2.4 m, abruptly swollen at the base (up to 4 cm wide), densely armed with stout, sometimes branched prickles up to 5 mm long; rachis 0.3 to 1 m, arching outwards; petiole and rachis covered in rusty-brown down on young leaves.
  • Leaflets: 8 to 16 pairs according to the original description (4 to 32 leaflets in the 2018 table), lanceolate to oblanceolate, straight to slightly sickle-shaped, with an entire margin along their whole length; basal leaflets 28 to 51 cm by 2.2 to 7.2 cm, middle leaflets 24.5 to 55 cm by 4 to 7.1 cm, apical leaflets 19 to 34.5 cm by 2.1 to 6.6 cm.
  • Young leaves: burgundy on emergence, then orange or reddish, turning green gradually from the tip towards the base of each leaflet, a feature unique to the species according to its authors; the 2018 table speaks of a mixture of orange, yellow and red.
  • Cones: axes of male and female cones hairy, with mixed white and rusty-brown hairs, a rare feature in the genus. Male cones conical-cylindrical, upright or slightly spreading, 5 to more than 15 per plant, 7.1 to 8.1 cm by 1.5 to 1.7 cm when shedding pollen. Female cones cylindrical, usually single (up to three), upright when ripe, 8 to 15.5 cm by 4 to 4.5 cm, ending in an acute to long-pointed tip of 0.5 to 4 cm; their scales turn from burnt amber to rust when receptive, then black when ripe.
  • Male scales: tan to cream in their lower half, speckled burgundy to brown in their upper half; 15 to 20 pollen sacs on the lower face and 12 to 15 on the upper face, an arrangement the authors knew in 2010 in only eight of the 68 recognised Zamia.
  • Female scales: 7 to 10 rows of 5 to 11, strongly projecting, angular in appearance, with a deeply sunken terminal facet and a sharp point.
  • Seeds: ovoid, 10 to 15.6 mm by 9.5 to 13.2 mm according to the original description (“less than 12 mm” in the 2018 key), with a red, fleshy sarcotesta that becomes paper-thin when ripe.
  • Seedlings: first leaves with an unarmed petiole 19 to 25 cm long, usually bearing four leaflets 6.1 to 6.5 cm by 1.7 to 2.2 cm; long apogeotropic roots, which grow up towards the surface.

A study of leaflet anatomy across the genus (Glos and colleagues, 2022) found sclereids, cells with very thick, lignified walls, in the leaflet tissue of Zamia pyrophylla, as in only six other species among those studied.

Hybrids

No hybrid, natural or raised in cultivation, has been documented.

Possible confusion

Its fire-coloured young leaves are usually enough to recognise it; three groups of species can nevertheless cause confusion:

  • Zamia paucifoliolata, from Buenaventura (Valle del Cauca), its closest look-alike: young leaves plain light green, 2 to 18 broader leaflets (6 to 11.5 cm), male scales spotted reddish brown, seeds over 18 mm;
  • Zamia ipetiensis and Zamia cunaria, of eastern Panama: leaflets clearly toothed in their upper half, petiole and rachis with a light white down and simple prickles, male scales uniformly tan or cream, female cones with a blunt tip and flat or barely projecting scales, young leaves usually green, sometimes brown; their leaves are also shorter, no more than 2.5 m in Zamia cunaria and 1.7 m in Zamia ipetiensis (Calonje and colleagues, 2010, after Alberto Taylor);
  • Zamia amazonum, of Amazonia, to which the Chocó plants were referred before 2010: according to the original description, Zamia amazonum carries 2 to 6 leaves at a time, with up to 30 pairs of leaflets, has hairless cone axes and no pollen sacs on the upper face of the male scales, and its brown young leaflets turn green from the base towards the tip.

Taxonomy

Zamia pyrophylla is an accepted name according to The World List of Cycads, and GBIF gives it as accepted; POWO could not be consulted directly. The species was described in 2010 in Brittonia (volume 62, pages 80 to 85) by Michael Calonje and Claudia Calonje (Montgomery Botanical Center), Dennis Stevenson (New York Botanical Garden), Yan Arley Ramos (CHOCO herbarium) and Anders Lindström. In 2001 Stevenson had placed three collections from the Chocó under Zamia amazonum, noting that they differed from typical material; an expedition by the CHOCO herbarium and Montgomery Botanical Center in March 2009 examined several hundred plants in five populations, including plants in cone, and concluded that they were a new species. The authors then described its relationships with other Zamia as “enigmatic”. Collections made 100 km north-west of Quibdó, with leaflets toothed at the tip and usually four pairs of leaflets, remained of uncertain identity (Calonje and colleagues, 2010).

In 2018 Calonje and colleagues placed Zamia pyrophylla in a small group with Zamia paucifoliolata, Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis, defined by morphology (unbranched underground stem, often a single leaf, hairy cone axes, pollen sacs on both faces of the male scales). The two Colombian species differ from the Panamanian ones by their entire leaflets and more projecting female scales. The transcriptome-based study by Lindstrom and colleagues (2024), which sampled a plant from the Chocó, recovers these four species as a subgroup of its western Andes clade (clade VI), already recognised as a “Cunaria” clade by Calonje and colleagues (2019): Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis grow on the Panamanian isthmus, Zamia pyrophylla and Zamia paucifoliolata within the western Andes region.

Etymology and history

The epithet pyrophylla comes from the Greek pyr, “fire”, and phyllon, “leaf”: it refers to the orange and red young leaves, which turn green from the tip towards the base and give the plant a fiery look (Calonje and colleagues, 2010; Haynes, 2022).

The type was collected on 3 and 4 March 2009 in the municipality of Quibdó (Chocó), between 60 and 100 m, by Michael Calonje and colleagues (no. COL09-014); the holotype is kept in the CHOCO herbarium of the Universidad Tecnológica del Chocó, with isotypes in the herbaria COL, CHOCO, CUVC and HUA (Calonje and colleagues, 2010). The fieldwork was carried out by that university with Montgomery Botanical Center and funded in particular by François and Angela Dolmetsch. At Montgomery Botanical Center, a living plant (accession 20100027) is linked to a herbarium specimen collected by Kress and Echeverry (no. 89-2571).

Common names

No common name is attested for this species, in English or in Spanish.

In the wild

Zamia pyrophylla is known only from the Atrato valley, in the municipalities of Quibdó and Atrato (Chocó, Colombia), over about 25 km². It grows in tropical rainforest between 10 and 100 m. Thanks to its underground stem, it survives the first clearing of the forest and can thrive and produce cones in full sun in pastures if left alone; the authors often saw it putting out new leaves in recently cleared fields, but did not find it in older clearings, which suggests that it does not tolerate repeated cutting of its leaves (Calonje and colleagues, 2010).

Climate

The Quibdó area is one of the wettest in the world, with an average of 8,558 mm of rain a year. The less rainy season runs from January to March (February is the driest month), the rainy season from April to December (August is the wettest month). The mean temperature is 28 °C (82 °F), with extremes of 15 to 41 °C (59 to 106 °F) (figures quoted by Calonje and colleagues, 2010).

Reproduction and associated fauna

Its phenology is poorly known: in March 2009 the authors saw male and female cones at every stage of maturity. Male cones shedding pollen held many beetles of the genus Pharaxonotha, known pollinators of other Zamia. Caterpillars of a butterfly of the genus Eumaeus were eating the young leaves, and adult butterflies were laying eggs on new leaves and on young male cones. The species is fairly common in some localities, and seedlings establish in the forest (Calonje and colleagues, 2010).

Conservation status and regulation

Zamia pyrophylla is rated Critically Endangered (CR) by the IUCN under criteria B1ab(iii,v), in an assessment by Cristina López-Gallego and Michael Calonje published in 2022: a very small range, with a decline in habitat quality and in the number of mature plants (category confirmed by GBIF; the Red List page could not be consulted). Montgomery Botanical Center already reported in 2010 that the species was threatened by habitat destruction and that its authors recommended this rating. In the original description, they proposed the Critically Endangered category under criteria B1b+2b, because of a known range of about 25 km² and the direct threat of agricultural expansion (Calonje and colleagues, 2010).

Like all Zamia except Zamia restrepoi, which is in Appendix I, Zamia pyrophylla falls under CITES Appendix II, where the genus has been listed since 4 February 1977. The listing carries annotation #4: seeds, pollen, seedlings and tissue cultures obtained in vitro and transported in sterile containers, and cut flowers of artificially propagated plants, are not covered by CITES. International trade in the plants themselves, however, requires an export permit. In the European Union the species falls under Annex B of Regulation (EC) No 338/97, whose current annexes are 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, ask the seller for proof of origin, and prefer seed-raised plants.

Growing Zamia pyrophylla

No growing advice specific to Zamia pyrophylla has been published. The species is held at Montgomery Botanical Center in Florida. In 2012 a French grower planning a trip to Latin America listed it on the Fous de palmiers forum among the “extremely rare and spectacular” Colombian Zamia, without growing it.

Simon Lavaud, of the French specialist nursery Cycadales.eu, places it in his group of Zamia from Central America and the lowland forests of South America, rated “difficult” outside the tropics, and describes it, in the caption of a photograph, as a species much sought after, very rare in cultivation and reputed to be very difficult to grow. For this group he advises a free-draining, neutral to acid compost and water, about 22 °C (72 °F) at night with short spells around 15 °C (59 °F) tolerated, 28 to 30 °C (82 to 86 °F) by day and air humidity of 70 to 90 % (Lavaud, 2023). These are recommendations for a group, not trials with Zamia pyrophylla.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

No outdoor cultivation has been documented outside the Chocó. Its habitat, one of the wettest and warmest lowland rainforests on earth, indicates that it can only be grown in the open in a constantly hot, humid tropical climate; this is a deduction, not a tested result.

Container cultivation

No container-growing report has been published. On the information available, it is a plant for a hot, very humid glasshouse, in a deep pot that leaves room for its long leaves and its roots.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

In short: a single documented accession, in Florida; no British or Australian record.

  • United States: the online catalogue of Montgomery Botanical Center (Coral Gables, Florida) lists one accession, number 20100027, from 2010 according to its numbering; it is the only garden that declares the species to BGCI (catalogue and BGCI queried on 25 October 2026).
  • Australia: no record in BGCI.
  • United Kingdom: no record in BGCI or in the online catalogues of British gardens.

A BGCI declaration shows that a garden held the plant at some point, not that it is alive there today.

Propagation

The plant is dioecious: a male and a female plant are needed to obtain seed. No germination data have been published; the original description notes only that seedlings send out long apogeotropic roots, which grow up towards the soil surface, and first leaves with four leaflets. Seeds are exempt from CITES under annotation #4; make sure they come from cultivated plants.

Pests and diseases

In the wild, caterpillars of a butterfly of the genus Eumaeus eat the young leaves (Calonje and colleagues, 2010). No pest or disease has been documented in cultivation. For the humid-tropical Zamia, Cycadales.eu notes that keeping the compost drier in winter, which protects species from seasonally dry climates against rot, works poorly (Lavaud, 2023).

Cold hardiness

There are no data on the cold tolerance of Zamia pyrophylla. It is a plant of lowland equatorial rainforest; nothing suggests that it tolerates frost, and the lowest temperature recorded at Quibdó is 15 °C (59 °F).

Mediterranean and European experience

No cultivation result has been published in France or Italy, in the ground or in pots, and no dated frost episode concerns the species. At the Jardin zoologique tropical in La Londe-les-Maures (Var, on the French Riviera), no observation of this species has been published. For readers in Mediterranean-type climates such as California or southern Australia, it is a plant for a heated glasshouse only.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

No cold record or growing report has been published outside the species’ range, on forums or by botanic gardens. In the UK it needs a hot, humid glasshouse all year round.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity study specific to Zamia pyrophylla has been published. The risk is, however, well documented in cycads: Zamia contain toxic glycosides (cycasin, macrozamin), from which methylazoxymethanol is derived, harmful to the liver and nervous system, and cycads also contain a neurotoxic amino acid, BMAA. Within the genus, the ASPCA lists Zamia furfuracea as toxic to dogs, cats and horses. 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

What does its name mean?

“Fire leaf”, from the Greek pyr and phyllon: its young leaves, burgundy on emergence, take on orange and red tones, then turn green from the tip towards the base.

Where does it grow?

Only in the Chocó, in Colombia, in lowland rainforest: it lives in the Atrato valley, around Quibdó, between 10 and 100 m, and also survives in recently cleared pasture.

How can it be told from Zamia paucifoliolata?

By the colour of the young leaves (light green in Zamia paucifoliolata), by its more numerous and narrower leaflets, and by its smaller seeds.

Is it a form of Zamia amazonum?

No. The Chocó plants were referred to Zamia amazonum before 2010; the study of five populations showed that they form a distinct species. Zamia amazonum carries more leaves and leaflets, has hairless cone axes and no pollen sacs on the upper face of the male scales.

Is it endangered?

Yes. The IUCN rates it Critically Endangered (2022): its range is very small and its habitat is shrinking.

Is it hardy?

No, in all likelihood. There are no cold data; it is a tropical rainforest plant from a region where the temperature has not been recorded below 15 °C (59 °F).

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

  • 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 [Original description; full text read: description, type and specimens, habitat and climate, phenology, associated fauna, proposed status, comparison with Zamia amazonum, Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis.]
  • 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 [Full text consulted.]
  • Glos, R.A.E., Salzman, S., Calonje, M. et al. (2022). Leaflet anatomical diversity in Zamia (Cycadales: Zamiaceae) shows little correlation with phylogeny and climate. The Botanical Review 88(4): 437–452. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12229-021-09272-0 [Full text consulted.]
  • 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 [Full text consulted on PubMed Central.]
  • 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. [Not consulted; “Cunaria” clade cited after Lindstrom et al. (2024).]
  • López-Gallego, C. & Calonje, M. (2022). Zamia pyrophylla. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T187844A1829656. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-1.RLTS.T187844A1829656.en [Red List assessment; reference given by The World List of Cycads and checked on Crossref, category confirmed by GBIF; the Red List page could not be 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 [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.]