Cycads in Italian Botanic Gardens: Naples, Palermo, Florence and La Mortola

Cycas revoluta
Cycas revoluta, Orto botanico di Palermo (30/11/2007). tatogra (Flickr), CC BY-SA 2.0.

Italy is one of the best places in Europe to see cycads, both under glass and outdoors. Its Mediterranean coasts and islands have winters mild enough to grow some species in the open ground, and its long tradition of university botanic gardens, the orti botanici, has produced collections that are old, well published and in some cases internationally important. A cycad planted in Italy two centuries ago can still be alive today.

This article brings together what is actually documented, garden by garden: official garden pages, the Naples garden’s own journal Delpinoa, seed lists (Index Seminum), the historic catalogues of La Mortola, the BGCI PlantSearch database and a few dated posts from the Italian forum Tropicamente. Every figure comes with the date of its source, because a list from 1912 or 1997 says nothing certain about today’s collection.

Orto Botanico di Napoli: the reference collection

Naples holds the best-documented cycad collection in Italy, and for a time one of the richest in the world. It began with the plants bequeathed by Luigi Califano (1901-1976), later enlarged by field collecting in Mexico, Central and South America and Africa during expeditions from 1969 to 1974 and from 1974 to 1994. Moretti’s accounts of the 1979 and 1980 Mexican expeditions, published in Delpinoa in 2022 and 2023, trace the origin of many of the garden’s Dioon.

How big is the collection?

The answer depends on the year of the source:

  • 1992: according to Osborne’s world cycad census, as cited by Menale and De Luca, Naples ranked first in the world by number of taxa.
  • Around 2007: about 800 specimens and more than 100 taxa (Delpinoa 49, 2007 volume published in 2011).
  • Undated garden web page: about 600 specimens and nearly 100 species.
  • 2014-2015: 550 specimens and 110 species (Sibilio, Delpinoa 56-57, published online in 2019), the most recent published figure.

The garden’s website describes the collection as “particularly rich” in Ceratozamia, Dioon, Encephalartos and Zamia. A speech printed in Delpinoa in 1996 recalls that Encephalartos collected in Africa were donated to Naples and that the garden’s finest specimens were shown at the first cycad conference, held at Beaulieu-sur-Mer, France, in 1987.

Mostly under glass, a few plants outdoors

Most of the plants live in the Serre Califano, about 5000 m² of greenhouses with three rooms devoted to cycads. Sibilio (2019) writes that the ecological requirements of the species make greenhouse cultivation necessary. These are conservation greenhouses and, as the garden warns, they are “not always open to visitors”.

Outdoors, in the gymnosperm area (Area delle gimnosperme), Cycas revoluta grows “in several specimens” alongside species of Ceratozamia, Macrozamia, Encephalartos and Dioon. In 2007 Menale and De Luca named Dioon edule with its large cones, Encephalartos villosus and Ceratozamia mexicana, whose coralloid roots can be seen at the soil surface. As early as 1981, seven Encephalartos longifolius were grown “outdoors or in the greenhouse”. The Cycas revoluta given by Queen Maria Carolina is pictured in a plate of Delpinoa 42 (2001).

Species named in the garden’s publications

What the seed lists do and do not show

The Index Seminum is the list of material the garden offers for exchange: seeds, pollen and leaf samples. It is not an inventory, and a species missing from recent editions has not necessarily gone. The lists are still valuable, because they say where a plant grows (greenhouse or outdoor area) and whether it has produced cones.

  • 2007: Cycas revoluta and Cycas thouarsii; 2008 to 2010, Cycas revoluta only.
  • 2012-13, the richest edition, including Ceratozamia mexicana, Cycas circinalis, Cycas rumphii, Dioon edule, Dioon spinulosum, Encephalartos ferox, Encephalartos horridus, Encephalartos lehmannii, Encephalartos longifolius, Zamia furfuracea and Zamia portoricensis. Pollen was offered for Cycas circinalis, Cycas rumphii, Cycas thouarsii, the Ceratozamia, Encephalartos ferox, Encephalartos horridus and Zamia furfuracea, meaning male plants that had coned.
  • 2020-21 and 2022-23: fresh Cycas revoluta seed harvested outdoors, and pollen of Cycas rumphii, Dioon edule, Dioon merolae and Encephalartos ferox from the Serre Califano.

The garden also sets seed. A 1988 study used Cycas revoluta seeds from the garden and noted that birds carried off Dioon edule seeds left on the sowing benches. In 1994, seeds of Ceratozamia mexicana var. latifolia harvested from a plant growing in the garden were analysed. The garden’s website also shows female cones of Encephalartos ferox and ovules of Cycas circinalis in the Serre Califano.

Orto Botanico di Palermo: the Cycadetum and the queen’s cycad

Palermo is the Italian garden where cycads are best seen in the open ground. The official Cycadetum page (UNIPA Heritage) claims “about half of the known cycad species”, a figure given only by the garden, with no published list. Another garden guide describes the Cycadetum as recent and as the most representative in Europe.

The story begins with a gift from Maria Carolina of Bourbon: the garden’s first Cycas revoluta, presented as the first plant of the species grown outdoors in Europe. The university page gives 1799 as the planting year; the fact sheet of APGI, the Italian parks and gardens association, gives 1793. The two dates contradict each other and no source consulted settles the question.

Cycas revoluta
Cycas revoluta at the Orto botanico di Palermo, 30 November 2007. Photo: tatogra (Flickr), CC BY-SA 2.0.

Outdoors, the Cycadetum page mentions “several remarkable specimens” of Encephalartos longifolius, Encephalartos woodii and Macrozamia moorei. The cycads occupy areas near the Palmetum and the great Ficus, plus beds devoted to Encephalartos and Cycas near the Serra Carolina. The garden publishes plant profiles for Cycas revoluta, Encephalartos ferox, Dioon edule and Macrozamia moorei.

Encephalartos woodii, or a hybrid?

A press article of 3 August 2025 (Balarm) and the university exhibition “Celibi. Storia di una migrazione botanica” (8 May to 20 October 2026) describe the Palermo plant as the hybrid Encephalartos woodii × natalensis, “the closest to the original species”. The Cycadetum page simply says “Encephalartos woodii“. This article follows the two more recent sources and calls it a hybrid.

What visitors have reported

A few dated visits on the Tropicamente forum add detail. The names come from photo captions, so they are participants’ identifications, not checked labels. In October 2009 they include Ceratozamia mexicana, Cycas circinalis, Dioon edule, Dioon spinulosum, Encephalartos longifolius, a pair of Macrozamia moorei, Zamia furfuracea, Zamia loddigesii and Zamia pumila. In November 2009 one participant wrote that Zamia furfuracea grows well in the ground without any damage. In December 2010 another listed Dioon rzedowskii, Cycas diannanensis, Lepidozamia peroffskyana and Macrozamia communis, and a third noted that many plants grow in heavily filtered light, which makes the leaves long and floppy.

Florence, Giardino dei Semplici: a cool greenhouse collection

The University of Florence’s Natural History Museum reports, at its last census, about 110 specimens in 8 genera and around 60 species, some represented by several plants, some of them large. The genera are Bowenia, Ceratozamia, Cycas, Dioon, Encephalartos, Macrozamia, Stangeria and Zamia; Microcycas and Lepidozamia are missing.

The core dates from the early twentieth century, when the private Garbari collection of Trento was donated: about 300 plants, many of them lost during the last war. Material collected in Central and South America in the 1970s followed, together with private collections donated by Verga (Como, 1960s-1970s), then Bruno (Lecce) and Munzone (Florence). The APGI fact sheet calls it “perhaps the largest Italian collection”, while a forum visitor in 2009 thought it “probably the second in Italy after Naples”. No species list is published online, and Florence’s 2017 Delectus seminum offers no cycads.

Most plants are in pots in the cool greenhouse, which can be seen all year. A group of Cycas revoluta grows in the ground in front of the greenhouse entrance and, according to the museum, has “adapted perfectly to the Florentine climate”. A 2011 forum post describes a potted Encephalartos cycadifolius with a trunk about one metre tall.

Florence is not Palermo. In January 1985 the Firenze/Peretola station (airport, 40 m) recorded −21.4 °C on 11 January and −21 °C on the 12th, during a spell (5-12 January) in which daily maxima stayed between −1.6 and 0.2 °C, according to the daily data published by Météociel. That is a lowland airport station, not the botanic garden, and no source consulted describes what the cold did to the garden’s cycads or says whether the Cycas revoluta group was already planted out.

Hanbury Botanical Gardens, La Mortola: nineteenth-century cycads

At La Mortola, near Ventimiglia on the Riviera, cycads have been documented for more than a century. The 1897 catalogue of plants “growing in the open air” lists Cycas normanbyana (now Cycas media), Cycas revoluta, Dioon edule, Encephalartos altensteinii, Encephalartos cycadifolius, Encephalartos lehmannii, Encephalartos villosus, Zamia horrida (now Encephalartos horridus) and probably Ceratozamia mexicana, whose reference is legible but not its name. The 1912 Hortus Mortolensis adds Ceratozamia kuesteriana, Cycas neo-caledonica and Macrozamia spiralis.

The 1912 cultivation notes are among the most useful in the whole record:

  • Cycas normanbyana and Cycas neo-caledonica “have been lost”, with no cause given.
  • For Cycas revoluta, only female plants had long been known in gardens; then male plants flowered at Bordighera. The garden now had both sexes and hoped to obtain well-formed seed.
  • A large male Dioon edule, bought in July 1888 from Prince Troubetzkoy’s garden, was planted “in a very sunny position, in dry sandy soil” and was doing “extremely well”.
  • A male Macrozamia spiralis came from the same source in the same month.

Today the APGI fact sheet mentions a “viale delle cycas”, an avenue with cycads transplanted and grown on by Dorothy Hanbury. On BGCI PlantSearch the garden reports Cycas revoluta, Dioon edule, Encephalartos altensteinii, Encephalartos horridus, Encephalartos lehmannii and Macrozamia spiralis, exactly the 1912 list. Either the historic plants survive, or the record was copied from the catalogue; only an on-site check could tell.

Other gardens: what is documented, and when

For many gardens the only source is BGCI PlantSearch, the database in which botanic gardens report the taxa they grow. The lists below were consulted on 10 October 2026, but the database shows no update date for each garden and is very incomplete for Italy: Naples, for instance, has reported only Encephalartos woodii. A reported species is therefore not a verified one, and an unreported species may well be there.

  • Rome (Sapienza): the APGI fact sheet, undated but with references up to 2013, names Cycas revoluta and Cycas circinalis among the notable plants of the hill area, i.e. outdoors. BGCI lists Cycas revoluta. A 2013 forum post shows a potted Encephalartos lehmannii outdoors near the entrance, with three offsets.
  • Pisa: the Viale Cisalpino is “lined with box and Cycas” (undated Tuscany Region page). In 2018 the new tropical greenhouse held Cycas circinalis and Cycas taiwaniana. BGCI adds Ceratozamia mexicana, Cycas revoluta, Dioon edule, Encephalartos horridus and Zamia furfuracea. The 2022 and 2023 seed lists offer no cycads.
  • Padua: BGCI lists Ceratozamia mexicana, Cycas circinalis and Cycas revoluta. In 2010 forum visitors described an old-trunked Ceratozamia labelled “mexicana”, planted in the ground in an open greenhouse against a wall.
  • Catania: BGCI lists Ceratozamia mexicana, Cycas revoluta, Dioon edule, Encephalartos hildebrandtii and Encephalartos horridus; the APGI fact sheet mentions no cycads.
  • Pavia: Ceratozamia mexicana, Cycas revoluta, Dioon edule, Dioon spinulosum, Encephalartos horridus and Macrozamia diplomera according to BGCI. Siena: Ceratozamia mexicana and Cycas revoluta. Camerino and Cosenza (University of Calabria): Cycas revoluta.
  • Portici: a 2020 article, reprinted from the magazine TerrAmica (January 2018), describes themed raised beds holding a collection of Cycadaceae, without naming species.
  • Messina: two forum posts, from 2007 (a newly planted Cycas revoluta) and 2008 (“good collections of palms, Cycas and succulents”). No institutional source.
  • La Mortella (Ischia): a 2011 source mentions “cycads” among the plantings; a 2008 forum post shows a Lepidozamia photographed in the garden, species not stated.

Outside the universities, the RHS page for Radicepura (Giarre, Catania) mentions rare specimens “such as Encephalartos“, and the Giardini Ravino (Forio d’Ischia) hold about 200 specimens including cycads, palms and Musaceae. On the forum, the La Cutura garden (Salento) had extended its plantings to palms and cycads by 2012, and at the Villa Comunale in Nardò a participant identified a Cycas thouarsii in 2011 photos; when the garden reopened in October 2012, several cycads had gone, attributed to theft. No source mentioning cycads was found for Cagliari, Lucca, Bari or Villa Taranto.

What these collections teach about growing cycads in a Mediterranean climate

The first lesson is simple: Cycas revoluta is the only cycad grown outdoors in almost every one of these gardens, from Palermo to Florence by way of Naples, Rome, Pisa and La Mortola, often for a very long time. Other species documented outdoors are few, and nearly all are in the south or on the Ligurian coast: Dioon edule in Naples (coning) and at La Mortola, Encephalartos villosus and Ceratozamia mexicana in Naples, Encephalartos longifolius in Naples and Palermo, Macrozamia moorei and the Encephalartos woodii hybrid in Palermo, and Zamia furfuracea in the ground in Palermo according to the forum.

The second lesson is that a Mediterranean climate does not suit everything. Even in Naples most of the collection stays under glass, which Sibilio (2019) attributes to the ecological requirements of the species, and in Florence the collection lives in pots in a cool greenhouse.

The third concerns soil, light and water. In 1912 the La Mortola Dioon edule was thriving in full sun and dry sandy soil, while in Palermo, according to one visitor, heavily filtered light makes the leaves long and floppy. Finally, seed needs both sexes: La Mortola waited a long time for male Cycas revoluta, whereas Naples now exchanges pollen and seed through its Index Seminum.

A comparison from southern France

Similar lessons come from the other side of the border. The Jardin zoologique tropical at La Londe-les-Maures (Var, 3 km from the sea), whose climate is close to that of much of coastal Italy, has published the following observations on this site:

  • several Cycas panzhihuaensis grown in full sun in a very free-draining bed of crushed schist “took perfectly” −7 °C and snow in January and February 2012; they are watered once or twice a week in summer;
  • for Macrozamia, one watering a week in summer is a minimum and two are ideal; part shade also suits them, especially Macrozamia communis, and gives better frost protection; dry frost is less dangerous than the same frost after a spell of rain;
  • a Ceratozamia “Palma Sola”, a population assigned to Ceratozamia brevifrons, planted in the ground under eucalyptus, took −6 °C without protection in winter 2011-2012 with no damage.

These are French results and should be read as such, without drawing precise temperature equivalents for any Italian town. The common thread on both sides of the border is short: perfect drainage, water in summer, sun for species from open habitats, and caution with winter wet.

Visiting tips

  • Naples: the outdoor gymnosperm area shows Cycas revoluta, Dioon, Encephalartos, Ceratozamia and Macrozamia. The Serre Califano, home to most of the collection, are conservation greenhouses that are “not always open”: check with the garden before you go.
  • Palermo: look for the Cycadetum near the Palmetum, the great Ficus and the Serra Carolina. The “Celibi” exhibition on the Encephalartos woodii hybrid is announced until 20 October 2026.
  • Florence: according to the museum, the cool greenhouse of the Giardino dei Semplici can be seen all year; the Cycas revoluta group grows in front of its entrance.
  • La Mortola: the cycad avenue mentioned by APGI is the natural starting point.
  • Everywhere: opening hours, prices and greenhouse access change, so check each garden’s official website. Labels and visitors’ identifications can be wrong, especially for Cycas circinalis. And the thefts reported in Naples and Nardò are a reminder that seeds and offsets in these gardens are not for collecting.

Points still to be checked

  • Encephalartos woodii in Naples: present in 1997 (one plant) and in 2007. In 2010 the forum reported an offset stolen “2 or 3 years ago” and another plant with its trunk but no leaves. BGCI still lists it, undated. Its current status is not established.
  • Cycas circinalis: the name appears in Rome (outdoors), Pisa, Padua, Palermo and Naples, but in cultivation it is often misapplied to other species such as Cycas rumphii or Cycas thouarsii. It should be checked on site.
  • Palermo, 1799 or 1793 for Maria Carolina’s Cycas revoluta: the two official sources disagree. Naples also holds a Cycas revoluta given by the same queen.
  • La Mortola: the BGCI list matches the 1912 catalogue exactly; whether it describes living plants is unknown.

Further reading on Succulents

Sources