The genus Bowenia, the zamia ferns of Queensland

The genus Bowenia brings together two cycads endemic to eastern Queensland, Australia, which live in rainforest and open forest near the coast. They are the only living cycads with bipinnate leaves, that is, leaves divided twice: their large dark green fronds, carried on a long petiole above an entirely underground stem, are often mistaken for ferns, hence their English names “zamia fern” and “Byfield fern”. The genus has only two species, Bowenia spectabilis, in the north-east, and Bowenia serrulata, around Byfield, in central-eastern Queensland; plants from the Tinaroo population, on the Atherton Tableland, also circulate among collectors under the provisional name Bowenia sp. ‘Tinaroo’. Its family placement is debated: formerly placed in the Stangeriaceae, sometimes in a family of its own, the Boweniaceae, it is now placed by POWO in the Zamiaceae, but CITES still lists it under Stangeriaceae.

Key facts about Bowenia

  • Accepted name (POWO): Bowenia Hook. ex Hook.f. (1863), published in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine 89: t. 5398
  • Number of species: 2, according to POWO and The World List of Cycads; a third, undescribed species is suspected in the McIlwraith Range (see Taxonomy)
  • Family: Zamiaceae according to POWO and The World List of Cycads; formerly Stangeriaceae (subfamily Bowenioideae) or a family of its own, Boweniaceae, depending on the author; Stangeriaceae in CITES nomenclature (Species+)
  • Common names: zamia fern (Bowenia spectabilis), Byfield fern and butcher’s fern (Bowenia serrulata)
  • Natural range: endemic to eastern Queensland (Australia), in two separate areas: the north-east, from the McIlwraith Range (Cape York Peninsula) to Cardwell, and the Byfield area, near Rockhampton
  • IUCN status: both species are Least Concern (LC), assessments by J.D. Bösenberg published in 2022 (The World List of Cycads, GBIF, Crossref)
  • CITES: Appendix II since 4 February 1977, like all cycads not in Appendix I, with annotation #4 (seeds, pollen and in vitro cultures exempt); Annex B in the European Union
  • Documented hardiness: no measured value published; no report with figures on the French and Italian forums; frost tolerance described as “light” by a nursery for both species; grown in pots in France, like Bowenia sp. ‘Tinaroo’ at the Jardin zoologique tropical (see Growing Bowenia)
  • Light and soil: light to deep shade, soil that stays moist
  • Habit and size: no visible trunk; underground, tuberous stem; leaves 1 to 2 m (3 to 6.5 ft) long
  • Toxicity: foliage of Bowenia serrulata poisonous to sheep and cattle; a risk known for all cycads (see Toxicity and precautions)

Characteristics of the genus Bowenia

A Bowenia is recognised first by its leaves: a long bare stalk, the petiole, carries at its top several branches (the pinnae), each lined with leaflets. No other living cycad has leaves divided twice. The plant has no trunk above ground: everything you see comes straight out of the soil.

  • Stem: underground, fleshy, branched, bare (without persistent leaf bases) and tuberous, extended by a taproot that is also tuberous. In Bowenia spectabilis it reaches 10 cm across and divides into one to five crowns; in Bowenia serrulata it reaches 25 cm across and carries five to twenty crowns.
  • Leaves: bipinnate, 1 to 2 m long. Bowenia spectabilis carries one to seven per crown, with four to ten pinnae; Bowenia serrulata up to 35 per crown, with six to sixteen pinnae.
  • Leaflets: 7 to 30 per pinna, without a midrib, crossed by many almost parallel veins. Their margin is entire in Bowenia spectabilis (leaflets 7 to 15 cm long and 1.5 to 4 cm wide) and regularly toothed in Bowenia serrulata.
  • Cones: the plants are dioecious (male or female). The cones arise at ground level. Male cones are ovoid and stalked, 3 to 6 cm long in Bowenia spectabilis; female cones, ovoid to globose, are 10 to 12 cm long and 7 to 10 cm across in the same species.
  • Seeds: subglobose to ovoid, with a white fleshy coat (sarcotesta) that turns purple as it ripens.
  • Pollination: it depends entirely on insects, small weevils of the genus Miltotranes, each specific to one Bowenia species (Wilson, 2002).

Taxonomy and classification

Bowenia is a genus accepted by POWO, which places it in the Zamiaceae and recognises two species. The species names have not changed: only its place among the families has varied with time and author.

Stangeriaceae, Boweniaceae or Zamiaceae?

Like Stangeria, the fern-leaved South African cycad, Bowenia is a small, trunkless, fern-like plant. This likeness led L.A.S. Johnson (1959) to unite the two genera in one family, the Stangeriaceae, placing Bowenia in a subfamily of its own, the Bowenioideae. D.W. Stevenson’s classification (1992) kept this arrangement, which is still found in work on the genus from the 2000s. Other authors made Bowenia a family in its own right, the Boweniaceae.

Molecular studies have called this relationship into question. The relationships between Bowenia, Stangeria and Dioon were long the hardest to resolve in the order (Chaw et al., 2005). The analysis of five nuclear genes published by Salas-Leiva and colleagues in 2013 gives a well-supported phylogeny: after Cycas, Dioon and then Bowenia form the first two branches of the order, before a group uniting Encephalartos, Macrozamia and Lepidozamia, and a group uniting Zamia and its relatives. In this scheme Bowenia is not the closest relative of Stangeria: their likeness does not reflect a direct relationship. The gymnosperm classification of Christenhusz et al. (2011), followed by POWO and The World List of Cycads, places all genera other than Cycas in the Zamiaceae. CITES, on the other hand, still follows its 2013 standard reference list: its Species+ database still places Bowenia in the Stangeriaceae, with Stangeria. For the reader, this changes no name: only the family labels differ from one book to another.

The Tinaroo population (Bowenia sp. ‘Tinaroo’)

On the Atherton Tableland, near Lake Tinaroo, grow plants of the Bowenia spectabilis group whose leaflets are regularly toothed, like those of Bowenia serrulata. Bowenia sp. ‘Tinaroo’ is a provisional locality name for this population, which some botanists suspect to be an undescribed species: David Jones (1993) treated it as a distinct species not yet described, Norstog and Nicholls (1997) as a variety of Bowenia spectabilis and Wilson (2004) as an ecotype of that species, in which the Australian Plant Census includes it (positions summarised by Hsiao and Oberprieler, 2022).

Their status remains to be clarified, and the name has no official botanical standing. Several clues link them to Bowenia spectabilis. According to the Flora of Australia, individuals with toothed leaflets occur occasionally in most populations of Bowenia spectabilis. The chromosome study by Kokubugata and colleagues (2000) shows that the three plants have the same chromosome number (2n = 18), but that Bowenia serrulata has ten chromosomes with a median centromere against eight in Bowenia spectabilis and in the Tinaroo plants: on this criterion, the Tinaroo plants are closer to Bowenia spectabilis. No published description gives the population the rank of species or variety, and it is not listed among the names, accepted or synonymous, of The World List of Cycads; the Australian Plant Census treats the phrase names Bowenia sp. Tinaroo and Bowenia sp. (Tinaroo) as synonyms of Bowenia spectabilis.

A third species in the McIlwraith Range?

The pollinating weevils shed further light. In 2022 Hsiao and Oberprieler revised the genus Miltotranes: Miltotranes prosternalis pollinates Bowenia spectabilis, Miltotranes subopacus pollinates Bowenia serrulata, and a new species, Miltotranes wilsoni, lives on the isolated population of the McIlwraith Range, on Cape York Peninsula. As the ranges of the weevils match those of their host plants, the authors suggest that this population could be a third species of Bowenia. No botanical description of this population had been published by October 2026: The World List of Cycads still accepts only two species.

Fossil Bowenia

The genus is known as a fossil far beyond Queensland. In 1978 R.S. Hill described two Eocene species from leaflet fragments: Bowenia eocenica, from Victoria, and Bowenia papillosa, from New South Wales. Their likeness to the living species suggests slow evolution. A third fossil species, Bowenia johnsonii, was described in 2019 from an early Eocene site in south-western Tasmania (Hill et al., 2019). The present range, limited to the Queensland coast, is therefore only a remnant of a once much wider distribution.

Etymology and history of the genus

The name Bowenia honours Sir George Ferguson Bowen (1821–1899), first governor of Queensland, from 1859 to 1868. The epithet spectabilis comes from Latin and means “remarkable”; serrulata means “finely toothed”, a reference to the edge of the leaflets.

Hooker’s original description (1863) tells the story of its discovery: the botanist Allan Cunningham had collected a portion of a frond as early as 1819 on the Endeavour River, but nothing more was known of the plant until Walter Hill, head of the Brisbane Botanic Garden, found it again at Rockingham Bay and sent a young living plant, with dried leaves and a male cone, to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in 1863. Joseph Dalton Hooker described Bowenia spectabilis, the type species of the genus, in 1863 in Curtis’s Botanical Magazine, from this cultivated plant; plate 5398 serves as the type. The second species also entered science through horticulture: the London nurseryman William Bull published it in 1878, in a sale catalogue, as variety serrulata of Bowenia spectabilis, before Charles J. Chamberlain raised it to species rank in 1912, in the Botanical Gazette.

Common names

The usual names are Australian English. Bowenia spectabilis is called “zamia fern”. Bowenia serrulata is called “Byfield fern”, after the locality where it abounds, and the Flora of Australia also gives the name “butcher’s fern”. The latter recalls a decorative use described by the Queensland naturalist Leonard Butt: the long-lasting fronds lined the back walls of butchers’ shops and served as backing for cut flowers and wreaths. All these names contain the word “fern”, although these plants are cycads.

Biogeography and ecology

Both species live on the eastern seaboard of Queensland, in moist or sheltered forest, hundreds of kilometres apart. According to Wilson’s thesis (2004), they are confined to small areas of tall, moist or closed forest.

  • Bowenia spectabilis: north-eastern Queensland, from Cardwell to Cooktown, with isolated stations in the McIlwraith Range and near Starcke, on Cape York Peninsula. The species grows from sea level up to about 700 to 750 m on the Atherton Tableland, in rainforest, vine forest and coastal forest, along streams, on sheltered slopes and among rocks. Most of its range lies in the Wet Tropics bioregion. Its population is estimated at 10,000 to 20,000 plants, stable, by the amateur encyclopaedia LLIFLE, which does not cite its source.
  • Bowenia serrulata: the Byfield area, north-east of Rockhampton, near the Tropic of Capricorn. It forms an understorey in open forest and wet sclerophyll forest, more rarely in rainforest, from sea level to about 700 m, on sandy or clay soils, along streams and on steep coastal hills.

Pollination rests on very close relationships with the Miltotranes weevils. According to Hsiao and Oberprieler (2022), Miltotranes prosternalis breeds in the male cones of Bowenia spectabilis, but also visits the female cones and pollinates them. These insects are the only known pollinators of the genus.

Regulation and conservation

Neither Bowenia is considered globally threatened, but trade in them is regulated. According to The World List of Cycads, Bowenia spectabilis and Bowenia serrulata are classed as Least Concern (LC) by IUCN. Both assessments, by J.D. Bösenberg, were published in 2022 (dated 16 October 2020 for Bowenia serrulata and 1 April 2021 for Bowenia spectabilis, according to Crossref) and replace those of K.D. Hill published in 2010; GBIF relays the same category. The McIlwraith Range population, if recognised as a distinct species, would have a very small, isolated range, which would make it a conservation concern in its own right.

Like most cycads, Bowenia are listed in CITES Appendix II, since 4 February 1977: international trade in plants requires permits. The listing carries annotation #4, in the version adopted at CoP20 and in force since 5 March 2026: seeds, spores and 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. Bowenia seeds can therefore move without a CITES permit. The United Kingdom, the United States and Australia apply CITES through their own national legislation and permit systems. For readers in the European Union, Regulation (EC) No 338/97 places Bowenia in its Annex B, the list in force being set by Commission Regulation (EU) 2026/1383, applicable since 29 June 2026. In Australia, the Queensland government’s WildNet database lists both species as “special least concern” under the Nature Conservation (Animals/Plants) Regulation 2020; neither is listed under the federal Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC). Before buying or importing a plant, ask the seller for proof of its origin (nursery-raised from seed) and check the rules in force with your national CITES authority. This general information does not replace the official texts (Species+ checked on 31 October 2026).

Growing Bowenia

Bowenia are understorey cycads, to be grown in shade and in a soil that never dries out completely, the opposite of the sun-loving Cycas revoluta. The sources available are mainly Australian and horticultural.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

  • Climate: according to the Australian Native Plants Society, Bowenia spectabilis has proved hardy in cultivation in tropical and subtropical regions, in a cool, partly shaded or shaded position. The Australian tropical rainforest flora notes that Bowenia serrulata is easily grown and has long been cultivated.
  • Light: the nursery Rare Palm Seeds advises light shade in all climates and deep shade for young plants and in hot, dry climates. According to the Australian Native Plants Society (2004), Bowenia grow well in Brisbane, especially in dappled sun.
  • Water and wind: the same nursery gives high water needs and low tolerance of wind, which matches the forest habitat of both species.
  • Soil: as with all cycads, standing water rots the roots; in the wild, both species grow on varied soils, sandy to clay, but always in moist or sheltered sites. The same society advises a good sandy loam enriched with humus.
  • Propagation: from seed, the usual method. According to the site’s guide to sowing cycads, Bowenia seeds germinate in one to three months, fairly evenly, on a warm substrate.

Container cultivation

Bowenia make good pot plants, according to the Australian Native Plants Society, and outside frost-free climates the pot is the only documented way to grow them. At the Jardin zoologique tropical in La Londe-les-Maures (Var, south-eastern France), a Bowenia sp. ‘Tinaroo’ has been grown in a pot since 2024 and develops slowly. Keep the plant in shade or bright indirect light, in a humus-rich but free-draining mix that stays slightly moist, and overwinter it frost-free in a heated glasshouse, conservatory or bright room without direct sun. The University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley, where most cycads grow outdoors, keeps its Bowenia under glass (2015 profile), a useful guide for readers in comparable Mediterranean climates.

Cold hardiness

No measured cold-hardiness value has been published by a garden or institution. Rare Palm Seeds describes the frost tolerance of Bowenia serrulata as “light” and presents Bowenia sp. ‘Tinaroo’ as the hardiest in the genus, able to take moderate frosts: these are commercial claims, with no published temperature readings. No documented result of growing Bowenia in the ground is documented in France, on either the Mediterranean or the Atlantic coast, and no dated cold spell was recorded for the genus.

Growers’ reports

These are amateur observations of indicative value. On the French forum Fous de palmiers and the Italian forum Tropicamente, in October 2026, the genus appears only in sale or collection lists: no trial in the ground, no winter with figures. No dated report with figures has been published in a readable source, and no failure is documented either.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

In short: in Britain Bowenia are glasshouse plants; in the United States they are found mainly in the Florida and California collections, under glass at Berkeley; in Australia both species are present in the large botanic gardens, in outdoor beds at Melbourne. A species listed by a garden in the BGCI PlantSearch database (consulted in October 2026) shows that it has been declared there at some point, not that a living plant is there today.

  • United Kingdom: the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh declares Bowenia serrulata and Bowenia spectabilis in BGCI PlantSearch, and a 2010 study of its collection (Sibbaldia 8) found all genera except Microcycas represented; the Edinburgh glasshouses are closed for restoration. Bowenia spectabilis is also declared by the University of Bristol Botanic Garden and Treborth (Bangor). No Bowenia growing in the open ground in Britain is documented in a verifiable source.
  • United States: Montgomery Botanical Center (Coral Gables, Florida) holds both species in its online catalogue, and Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden’s Garden Explorer (updated 16 October 2026) lists Bowenia spectabilis. In California, the Huntington, the San Diego Botanic Garden and the San Diego Zoo declare Bowenia serrulata in BGCI; at Berkeley the genus needs a glasshouse, and in 2015 Lotusland grew nine of the ten cycad genera, all except Bowenia (Plant Collections Network).
  • Australia: both species are in the Garden Explorers of the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney (updated 1 October 2026) and of the Australian Botanic Garden Mount Annan (updated 15 October 2026), and in the census of the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria, which places them in outdoor beds at Melbourne. Canberra, Cairns, Adelaide and James Cook University (Townsville) declare one or both in BGCI. The Sydney Garden Explorer also lists a “Bowenia intermedia”, a name that appears nowhere, even as a synonym, in the list of names of The World List of Cycads.

Toxicity and precautions

Bowenia are poisonous. The Australian tropical rainforest flora, following the Flora of Australia, states that the foliage of Bowenia serrulata is poisonous to sheep and cattle and can cause death or gait disorders (“staggers”). No analysis of toxins specific to the genus is documented, but all cycads studied contain toxins, especially in the seeds, that are dangerous to people and pets. Keep plants and seeds out of reach of children, dogs and cats, and wear gloves to clean the seeds. If any part has been eaten, contact a poison centre, a doctor or a vet without delay.

Species of the genus Bowenia

Two species are accepted by POWO and by The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15); the two other entries below are not described species. The accepted species with an English page on the site are linked.

  • Bowenia spectabilis Hook. ex Hook.f. (1863): north-eastern Queensland (Wet Tropics); type species, leaflets with entire margins, large leaves 1 to 2 m long; Least Concern (LC, 2022).
  • Bowenia serrulata (W.Bull) Chamb. (1912): Byfield area, central-eastern Queensland; leaflets regularly toothed, up to 35 leaves per crown; Least Concern (LC, 2022).
  • Bowenia sp. ‘Tinaroo’: provisional locality name for the Tinaroo population, on the Atherton Tableland, which some botanists suspect to be an undescribed species; not formally described, and included in Bowenia spectabilis by the Australian Plant Census.
  • McIlwraith Range population: Cape York Peninsula; perhaps a third species, not yet described.

Frequently asked questions

Are Bowenia ferns?

No. They are cycads, seed plants that reproduce by cones, not by spores. Their bipinnate leaves and the absence of a visible trunk give them the look of a fern, hence their English names “zamia fern” and “Byfield fern”.

How many species of Bowenia are there?

Two: Bowenia spectabilis and Bowenia serrulata. Bowenia sp. ‘Tinaroo’ is a provisional locality name with no formal botanical rank, and the McIlwraith Range population is, for now, only a possible species, flagged by its pollinating weevil.

How do you tell Bowenia spectabilis from Bowenia serrulata?

Usually by the edge of the leaflets: entire in Bowenia spectabilis, regularly toothed in Bowenia serrulata. As some Bowenia spectabilis have toothed leaflets, notably the Tinaroo plants, the origin of the plant (north-east or Byfield area) remains a useful clue.

Is Bowenia ‘Tinaroo’ a separate species?

Not formally. ‘Tinaroo’ is a provisional locality name for the Tinaroo population, on the Atherton Tableland, which David Jones (1993) treated as an undescribed species; Norstog and Nicholls (1997) regarded it as a variety, while Wilson (2004), the chromosome and pollinating-weevil studies and the Australian Plant Census attach it to Bowenia spectabilis. No description has been published.

Can a Bowenia be grown outdoors in the UK?

There is no documented case. No trial in the open ground is documented in Britain or France, and the frost tolerance claimed by nurseries is low. The safest course is a pot, in shade, overwintered frost-free in a glasshouse, conservatory or indoors, like Bowenia sp. ‘Tinaroo’ at the Jardin zoologique tropical in the south of France.

Are Bowenia poisonous?

Yes. The foliage of Bowenia serrulata has poisoned sheep and cattle in Australia, and all cycads are regarded as poisonous, especially their seeds. Keep these plants out of reach of children and animals.

Does Bowenia belong to the Zamiaceae or the Stangeriaceae?

To the Zamiaceae, according to POWO, the reference for this site. Older works place it in the Stangeriaceae, next to Stangeria, or in a family of its own; molecular studies do not confirm a direct relationship with Stangeria. CITES and its Species+ database still use Stangeriaceae: it is under that family name that the genus appears in regulatory documents.

Further reading on Succulentes

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Hooker, J.D. (1863). Bowenia spectabilis. Curtis’s Botanical Magazine 89: t. 5398. [Publication of the genus and type species; history of the discovery; scanned text on the Internet Archive.]
  • Chamberlain, C.J. (1912). Two species of Bowenia. Botanical Gazette 54: 419–423. [Bowenia serrulata raised to species rank; field observations at Babinda and Byfield; scanned text on the Internet Archive.]
  • Johnson, L.A.S. (1959). The families of cycads and the Zamiaceae of Australia. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 84: 64–117. [Classification of the cycad families; family Stangeriaceae.]
  • Hill, R.S. (1978). Two new species of Bowenia Hook. ex Hook. f. from the Eocene of eastern Australia. Australian Journal of Botany 26(6): 837–846. doi:10.1071/BT9780837 [Description of Bowenia eocenica and Bowenia papillosa; peer-reviewed article.]
  • Stevenson, D.W. (1992). A formal classification of the extant cycads. Brittonia 44: 220–223. [Bowenia kept in the Stangeriaceae.]
  • Kokubugata, G., Kondo, K., Wilson, G.W., Randall, L.M., van der Schans, A. & Morris, D.K. (2000). Comparison of karyotype and rDNA-distribution in somatic chromosomes of Bowenia species (Stangeriaceae, Cycadales). Australian Systematic Botany 13(1): 15–20. [Karyotypes of both species and of the Tinaroo plants; peer-reviewed article.]
  • Wilson, G.W. (2002). Insect pollination in the cycad genus Bowenia Hook. ex Hook. f. (Stangeriaceae). Biotropica 34(3): 438–441. [Obligate pollination by Miltotranes weevils; peer-reviewed article.]
  • Wilson, G.W. (2004). The biology and systematics of Bowenia Hook ex. Hook f. (Stangeriaceae: Bowenioideae). Master’s thesis (research), James Cook University, Townsville. [Overview of the genus; two species confirmed.]
  • Chaw, S.-M., Walters, T.W., Chang, C.-C., Hu, S.-H. & Chen, S.-H. (2005). A phylogeny of cycads (Cycadales) inferred from chloroplast matK gene, trnK intron, and nuclear rDNA ITS region. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 37: 214–234. [Molecular phylogeny of the order; peer-reviewed article.]
  • Christenhusz, M.J.M., Reveal, J.L., Farjon, A., Gardner, M.F., Mill, R.R. & Chase, M.W. (2011). A new classification and linear sequence of extant gymnosperms. Phytotaxa 19: 55–70. [Classification followed by POWO.]
  • Salas-Leiva, D.E. et al. (2013). Phylogeny of the cycads based on multiple single-copy nuclear genes: congruence of concatenated parsimony, likelihood and species tree inference methods. Annals of Botany 112(7): 1263–1278. [Position of Bowenia in the order; peer-reviewed article.]
  • Hill, R.S., Hill, K.E., Carpenter, R.J. & Jordan, G.J. (2019). New macrofossils of the Australian cycad Bowenia and their significance in reconstructing the past morphological range of the genus. International Journal of Plant Sciences 180(2): 128–140. [Description of Bowenia johnsonii.]
  • Bösenberg, J.D. (2022). Bowenia serrulata. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T41979A2959179. [LC category; assessment dated 16 October 2020.]
  • Bösenberg, J.D. (2022). Bowenia spectabilis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T41980A48510061. [LC category; assessment dated 1 April 2021.]
  • Hsiao, Y. & Oberprieler, R.G. (2022). Taxonomic revision of the genus Miltotranes Zimmerman, 1994 (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Molytinae), the Bowenia-pollinating cycad weevils in Australia, with description of a new species and implications for the systematics of Bowenia. Insects 13(5): 456. [Pollinating weevils, populations of Tinaroo, Kuranda and the McIlwraith Range, hypothesis of a third species; peer-reviewed article, open access.]
  • Calonje, M., Stevenson, D.W. & Osborne, R. (2026). The World List of Cycads, version 2026.08.15. doi:10.5281/zenodo.21958524. [Reference checklist: two accepted species, IUCN statuses.]