Macrozamia lomandroides

Macrozamia lomandroides is a small cycad with no visible trunk from south-eastern Queensland, in eastern Australia, confined to the coastal lowlands south of Bundaberg, between the Elliott and Isis rivers and around Childers, where it grows in open eucalypt and Banksia woodland. A species of the genus Macrozamia, it owes its name to its likeness to the tussocks of Lomandra, an Australian grass-like plant. Its leaflets end in a few small, sharp teeth, a feature found in no other Queensland Macrozamia. Much of its habitat has been turned into sugar-cane fields, and it is listed as Endangered.

Key facts about Macrozamia lomandroides

  • Accepted name: Macrozamia lomandroides D.L.Jones (1991), accepted by The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15) and the Australian Plant Census
  • Former names and synonyms: none
  • Family: Zamiaceae, order Cycadales; section Parazamia
  • Common names: no specific name attested in English or in any other language
  • Natural range: endemic to south-eastern Queensland, Australia: south of Bundaberg and around Childers, up to about 40 m above sea level
  • IUCN status: Endangered (EN A2cd), assessment by J.D. Bösenberg dated 14 August 2020 and published in 2022
  • CITES and other protection: CITES Appendix II (annotation #4); Annex B in the European Union; Endangered under the federal EPBC Act and under Queensland law
  • Documented hardiness: no cultivation data; the habitat is practically frost-free, with a record low of 0.8 °C (33.4 °F) at Bundaberg (see Cold hardiness)
  • Light and soil: in the wild, open woodland or open forest on grey silty loam or sand, on flat ground; no published cultivation advice
  • Habit and adult size: underground stem 10 to 17 cm across; 2 to 6 leaves 30 to 80 cm long
  • In the UK, US and Australia: Royal Botanic Garden Sydney and Australian National Botanic Gardens; The Huntington and Descanso Gardens in California; no British garden
  • Toxicity: not documented for the species; seeds and leaves toxic throughout the genus (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Macrozamia lomandroides

The best character is the tip of the leaflets: on adult leaves it carries one to six small, sharp teeth on one side and one or two on the other. David L. Jones, who described the species in 1991, stressed that no other Macrozamia in Queensland shows this feature. His original description and the Flora of Australia (Hill, 1998) give the following characters.

  • Stem: underground, more or less ovoid, 10 to 17 cm across.
  • Leaves: 2 to 6 in an erect or spreading crown, 30 to 80 cm long, dull green; petiole 6 to 14 cm long; axis strongly twisted in a spiral, one to eight times, with a pale green to cream band along its margins, most visible in the upper two thirds.
  • Leaflets: 50 to 90 per leaf, linear or slightly widened towards the tip, 20 to 30 cm long and 0.9 to 1.4 cm wide, leathery, dark green and dull above, paler with 10 to 16 raised veins beneath, held stiffly erect and crowded on the axis; the lowest leaflets are not reduced to spines.
  • Male cones: more or less cylindrical, 12 to 15 cm long and 4 to 5 cm across, usually curving with age; the upper scales carry stiff spines up to 0.8 cm long.
  • Female cones: more or less ovoid, 12 to 18 cm long and 7 to 9 cm across, erect; the spines lengthen towards the top of the cone, the longest about 3 cm.
  • Seeds: 2.2 to 2.6 cm long and 1.8 to 2.2 cm wide, with orange to red flesh.

The sources differ on the colour of the leaves: “dull green” in the original description, “pale green” in the Flora of Australia. WildNet, the Queensland Government’s wildlife database, gives a stem up to 25 cm across and leaflets up to 35 cm long, slightly more than the description of 1991.

Hybrids

Yes, one natural cross is recorded. WildNet lists a hybrid Macrozamia lomandroides × Macrozamia pauli-guilielmi, known from a single locality. No description of this hybrid has been published.

Possible confusion

In the wild, a clump of Macrozamia lomandroides first suggests a large Lomandra, an unrelated grass-like plant, hence its name. Among cycads, its closest relative according to Jones (1991) is Macrozamia fawcettii, from New South Wales, some 400 km away. That species has thinner leaflets, spreading widely from the axis like a whorl, and a leaf axis that is perfectly round in cross-section, whereas in Macrozamia lomandroides the leaflets are thicker, stiffly erect and crowded, and the axis is flat or shallowly channelled on one face. The Flora of Australia also compares it with Macrozamia platyrhachis, from central Queensland, whose leaflets are broader and lack the teeth. The small teeth at the tip of the leaflets separate it from all other Queensland Macrozamia.

Taxonomy

Macrozamia lomandroides D.L.Jones is accepted by The World List of Cycads and the Australian Plant Census. David L. Jones described it in 1991 in the journal Austrobaileya (vol. 3, no. 3, p. 483), in a paper that also created Macrozamia fearnsidei and revised several Queensland species. The type was collected on 29 September 1990 by D.L. Jones and B.E. Jones (no. 6341), about 26.5 km south of Bundaberg beside the road to Goodwood; the holotype is held at the Australian National Herbarium in Canberra, with isotypes in Brisbane (BRI) and Sydney (NSW).

Its author placed it in section Parazamia, which brings together small species with usually twisted leaves and no spiny leaflets at the base of the leaf. It has no synonym and no former name.

Etymology and history

The name means “resembling Lomandra”, a genus of Australian grass-like plants: Jones (1991) notes that clumps of the species bear a strong resemblance to large plants of some Lomandra. The genus name Macrozamia combines the Greek makros, “large”, with the genus name Zamia.

Remarkably, the species was brought to the attention of botanists by cycad growers, who knew it from several sites south of Bundaberg; when it was described, the Queensland Herbarium in Brisbane held no specimen of it. Jones already noted in 1991 that, although locally common, it was not conserved and was threatened by clearing.

Common names

No specific common name is attested in English, and no Aboriginal name is recorded. The Atlas of Living Australia shows only the generic “Cycad”. Gardeners and nurseries use the scientific name.

In the wild

Macrozamia lomandroides lives south of Bundaberg, between the Elliott and Isis rivers, and around Childers, in south-eastern Queensland (Jones, 1991; Flora of Australia). According to WildNet, after Halford (1995), it grows in open woodland or open forest dominated by eucalypts and Banksia, with a dense, low, shrubby understorey (the “wallum”) or a grassy one, on flat ground or rarely on a slope, up to about 40 m above sea level, on grey silty loam or sand, sometimes among rocks. Jones (1991) found it among grass in grey silty loam under tall open forest.

The cones mature in October and November and the seeds ripen in March and April. According to the Flora of Australia, the plants may not cone every year when conditions are unfavourable, and the seeds are not ready to germinate for at least nine months, because fertilisation is delayed. There is little evidence of seed dispersal: seedlings are often clumped close to the parent plant. WildNet adds that a weevil of the genus Tranes plays a role in pollination.

Like other Macrozamia with an underground stem, adult plants resprout after a fire has burnt their leaves, and fire is often followed by synchronised coning; seedlings and seeds left on the surface, on the other hand, are usually killed (Queensland Herbarium, 2007, cited by the Flora of Australia).

Conservation status and regulation

Macrozamia lomandroides is listed as Endangered (EN) on the IUCN Red List under criterion A2cd: a population decline linked to a loss of habitat and to exploitation. The assessment, by J.D. Bösenberg, is dated 14 August 2020 and was published in 2022 (The World List of Cycads, GBIF and Crossref, checked on 26 October 2026).

In Australia, it is listed as Endangered under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC), effective 16 July 2000 according to the Flora of Australia, after an Endangered listing under the earlier Endangered Species Protection Act from the end of 1997 (WildNet). It is also Endangered under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act, and WildNet records it as a restricted plant and as a sensitive species. It is covered by the national multi-species recovery plan for cycads published in 2007 by the Queensland Herbarium. As early as 1991, Jones noted that much of its habitat had already been converted to sugar cane; WildNet adds that it is highly collectable and regularly poached.

Like other Macrozamia, it has been listed in CITES Appendix II since 4 February 1977, with annotation #4: seeds and pollen are exempt, but plants are not. In the European Union it falls under Annex B of Regulation (EC) No 338/97, as amended by Regulation (EU) 2026/1383, applicable since 29 June 2026 (Species+, checked on 26 October 2026). Check the regulations in force before any purchase, and refuse any plant whose cultivated origin is not proven: poaching is one of the threats to the species.

Growing Macrozamia lomandroides

No cultivation experience with Macrozamia lomandroides has been published, even though the history of its discovery shows that Australian growers knew it before botanists did. Its habitat gives a few pointers: a coastal subtropical climate almost without frost, rain concentrated in summer (about 1,000 mm a year at Bundaberg), and silty or sandy soil on flat ground. These are assumptions drawn from the wild, not tested advice.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

  • Climate: frost-free or nearly so; the nearest weather station records no frost in its long-term averages.
  • Light: in the wild, open woodland and open forest.
  • Soil: in the wild, grey silty loam or sand on flat ground; good drainage is a reasonable precaution.
  • Water: no published data; the habitat receives most of its rain in summer.

Container cultivation

No container culture has been described. Its small size, with a crown of a few leaves up to 80 cm long, suits a deep pot that can be brought under cover in winter in climates with frost.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

  • Australia: the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney grows it in bed 102i, with accessions numbered in 1992, one of them of wild origin, and received a further lot of three plants of wild origin in 2022 (S2022-0086), according to its Garden Explorer; the Australian National Botanic Gardens in Canberra also declare it to BGCI.
  • United States: The Huntington (San Marino) and Descanso Gardens (La Cañada Flintridge), both in California, declare it to BGCI. Montgomery Botanical Center does not list it.
  • United Kingdom: no British garden declares it to BGCI (checked on 26 October 2026).

No grower in the English-speaking world has published a cultivation result.

Propagation

Macrozamia lomandroides is propagated by seed. A male and a female plant are needed, and hand pollination outside Australia, in the absence of its pollinating weevil. The seeds call for patience: according to the Flora of Australia, they are not ready to germinate for at least nine months. Wear gloves to clean the seeds, whose flesh is toxic. Buy seed or plants only from a legal, documented source.

Pests and diseases

No pest or disease specific to Macrozamia lomandroides is documented. The threats described in the wild are human ones: clearing and poaching. For Macrozamia grown in Europe, growers’ forums mainly mention scale insects and rot in cold, wet soil (see the genus page).

Cold hardiness

The cold hardiness of Macrozamia lomandroides has not been tested in cultivation, and everything points to a tender species.

Mediterranean and European experience

No result has been published in Europe, in the ground or in a pot. In March 2014, on the French Fous de palmiers forum, a grower reported the opinion of an Australian specialist who placed Macrozamia lomandroides in the group of “not very hardy” species, those of the Queensland coast, the least hardy of the four groups he distinguished. No temperature was given. Coming from a region almost without frost, it should be treated as a pot plant to bring under cover in winter, pending data.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

At the Bundaberg Aero weather station (31 m), a few kilometres from the northern part of its range, the lowest temperature recorded since 1959 is 0.8 °C (33.4 °F), on 18 July 1963; the mean July minimum is 10.4 °C (50.7 °F) and no frost appears in the long-term averages (Bureau of Meteorology). The plants therefore practically never meet frost in the wild. Outdoors, only frost-free climates, such as coastal southern California or southern Florida, come close to these conditions; this is a deduction from the climate of the habitat, since no American grower has published a result. In Britain, it is a plant for a heated glasshouse or conservatory.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity data specific to Macrozamia lomandroides have been published, but the risk is well documented for the genus. Macrozamia contain toxic glycosides (cycasin, macrozamin), from which methylazoxymethanol is derived, a poison of the liver; cattle that eat the leaves can develop a locomotor disorder of the hind legs (Healy, 1967), which McKenzie (2006) describes as irreversible, ending in paralysis of the hindquarters, with no treatment.

Treat the plant as toxic: wear gloves to handle the seeds and keep them out of reach of children and animals. In case of ingestion, contact a poison centre, a doctor or a vet without delay.

Traditional uses

No traditional use specific to Macrozamia lomandroides is recorded. Other Macrozamia provided Aboriginal peoples with seeds that could be eaten after long processing (see the genus page); never eat cycad seeds.

Frequently asked questions

Why is it called lomandroides?

Because it looks like a Lomandra. Its author, David L. Jones, noted in 1991 that its clumps of stiff leaves bear a strong resemblance to large plants of that Australian grass-like genus.

How can it be recognised?

By the toothed tips of its leaflets. Each adult leaflet carries several small, sharp teeth at its tip, a feature that no other Queensland Macrozamia shows.

Is it hardy?

No, very probably not. No trial has been published, but it comes from a region almost without frost (a record low of 0.8 °C, or 33.4 °F, at Bundaberg), and an Australian specialist ranks it among the least hardy species of the genus.

Why is it endangered?

Because of habitat loss and poaching. Much of its land has been converted to sugar-cane fields, and the plants are sought after by collectors.

Does it hybridise?

Yes, rarely. WildNet records a hybrid with Macrozamia pauli-guilielmi, known from a single locality.

Is it poisonous?

Probably, like all cycads. No study deals with this species, but the seeds and leaves of Macrozamia are toxic to people and livestock.

Further reading on Succulentes

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Jones, D.L. (1991). Notes on Macrozamia Miq. (Zamiaceae) in Queensland with the description of two new species in section Parazamia (Miq.) Miq. Austrobaileya 3(3): 481–487. [Protologue of Macrozamia lomandroides, pp. 483–484; full text (BioStor copy).]
  • Hill, K.D. (1998). Cycadophyta. In: McCarthy, P.M. (ed.), Flora of Australia 48: 597–661, 717–719. ABRS/CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne. [Description; online version.]
  • Queensland Herbarium (2007). National Multi-species Recovery Plan for the cycads, Cycas megacarpa, Cycas ophiolitica, Macrozamia cranei, Macrozamia lomandroides, Macrozamia pauli-guilielmi and Macrozamia platyrhachis. [Cited by the Flora of Australia and WildNet.]
  • Bösenberg, J.D. (2022). Macrozamia lomandroides. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T41964A48779906. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-1.RLTS.T41964A48779906.en [Endangered, criterion A2cd; assessment dated 14 August 2020, from Crossref.]
  • Haynes, J.L. (2022). Etymological compendium of cycad names. Phytotaxa 550(1): 1–31. doi:10.11646/phytotaxa.550.1.1 [Etymology, as given by The World List of Cycads.]
  • Healy, P.J. (1967). Macrozamia poisoning. Institute of Inspectors of Stock of New South Wales Year Book. [Reprinted by Flock & Herd.]
  • McKenzie, R.A. (2006). Toxicology for Australian Veterinarians: cycads (Cycas, Macrozamia, Lepidozamia, Bowenia), pp. 282–288. Animal Health Australia, Australian Animal Pathology Standards Program (PDF): https://aapspextranet.animalhealthaustralia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/tav7_17_unknowntoxins_pt2.pdf [Australian veterinary reference text; describes the cattle syndrome as irreversible, ending in paralysis of the hindquarters, with no treatment.]
  • Calonje, M., Stevenson, D.W. & Osborne, R. (2026). The World List of Cycads, version 2026.08.15. Montgomery Botanical Center, Coral Gables. doi:10.5281/zenodo.21958524 [Reference list.]