Cycas lane-poolei

Cycas lane-poolei is a cycad of the north-west Kimberley, in Western Australia, where it grows in scattered populations in eucalypt savanna woodland on sandy soils. Described in 1923 by the botanist Charles Austin Gardner, this member of the genus Cycas is named after the forester Charles Edward Lane-Poole. Long reduced to a variety of Cycas media (Cycas media var. lane-poolei), it was reinstated as a species in 1996. Its trunk reaches 4 to 5 m, rarely 8 m.

Key facts about Cycas lane-poolei

  • Accepted name: Cycas lane-poolei C.A.Gardner (1923), accepted by The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15), the Flora of Australia and GBIF; POWO could not be consulted directly
  • Former names and synonyms: Cycas media var. lane-poolei (C.A.Gardner) J.Schust. (1932)
  • Family: Cycadaceae, order Cycadales
  • Common names: no English common name specific to the species
  • Natural range: Western Australia, north-west Kimberley (Mount Hann, Mitchell Plateau, upper Drysdale River, Mount Agnes)
  • IUCN status: Least Concern (LC), assessment by John Donald Bösenberg published in 2022; category confirmed by the Red List data relayed by GBIF
  • 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: savanna woodland of Eucalyptus miniata, Eucalyptus tetrodonta or Corymbia latifolia, mostly on sandy soils
  • Habit and adult size: trunk 4 to 5 m, rarely 8 m, 12 to 15 cm across; leaves 60 to 110 cm (Hill 1996); the original description gives a trunk of 10 to 12 feet (3 to 3.7 m) by 6 to 9 inches (15 to 23 cm) and leaves of 60 to 76 cm
  • In the UK, US and Australia: no garden record found under this name; one old Montgomery accession under an unchecked name (see In cultivation)
  • Toxicity: no data for the species; treat it as poisonous, like all Cycas (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Cycas lane-poolei

Cycas lane-poolei is told by its new leaves, pale green to slightly bluish, which turn glossy green; by its hairless leaflets, whose midrib is as prominent above as below; and above all by its hard, prickly cataphylls wrapped in thick orange wool. Its leaves look very like those of Cycas armstrongii, but the plant is more robust in all its parts. Description after Hill (1996) and the Flora of Australia:

  • Trunk: 4 to 5 m, rarely 8 m, 12 to 15 cm across.
  • Leaves: 60 to 110 cm long, slightly keeled to flat (opposite leaflets at 130 to 180°), with 90 to 170 leaflets, usually ending in a spine; petiole 18 to 40 cm, hairless, usually spineless or with a few spines near the leaflets.
  • Median leaflets: 6 to 17 cm long and 4.5 to 8.5 mm wide, inserted at 45 to 60°, 4 to 12 mm apart, hairless, paler below; margins flat; base narrowed to 2.5 to 4 mm.
  • New growth: dull green to slightly bluish, sometimes strongly waxy, covered in loose white down mixed with a few orange hairs, soon shed; it turns a glossy mid green.
  • Cataphylls (the scale leaves protecting the crown): linear, prickly, 6 to 10 cm long, with thick, woolly orange down.
  • Male cones: ovoid, orange to pale orange-brown, 10 to 18 cm long and 9 to 11 cm across; apical spine of the microsporophylls fine, sharply upturned, 8 to 11 mm long.
  • Megasporophylls (the fertile leaves of female plants): 16 to 22 cm long, with grey and pale brown down, carrying 2 to 4 ovules; blade narrowly triangular, 40 to 65 mm by 17 to 28 mm, regularly toothed (12 to 30 teeth of 1 to 5 mm); apical spine 15 to 20 mm.
  • Seeds: flattened-ovoid, 38 to 45 mm by 36 to 40 mm, green turning orange, without a bloom; fleshy coat 3 to 4 mm thick.

Gardner’s original description (1923) depicts an upright, palm-like plant with a stout, unbranched trunk 10 to 12 feet (3 to 3.7 m) tall and 6 to 9 inches (15 to 23 cm) thick, crowned with gracefully drooping leaves. The leaves, entirely hairless, are 60 to 76 cm long, on a petiole 23 to 30 cm long and 6 to 8 mm wide, armed along its whole length with short, stout, alternate spines 4 mm long. The many leaflets, entire, linear, straight and tapering, with a yellowish-brown tip and a very visible midrib, flat, glossy dark green above and paler below, measure 10 to 13 cm by 6 to 11 mm. Gardner saw no male cone. The megasporophylls, about 20 cm long, flattened and entirely hairless, usually carry four ovules above the middle; their oval-triangular blade, 4.4 cm wide, has two small lobes at the base, and its margins and 5 cm tip are toothed with sharp spines. The seeds, ovoid-globose, hard, hairless, glossy yellowish green and covered with a glaucous powder when young, measure 5.7 cm by 5 cm. For Gardner the species had no close affinity and stood out by being entirely hairless.

Several of these figures differ from Hill’s (1996): a thicker trunk (15 to 23 cm against 12 to 15 cm), hairless rather than downy megasporophylls, and larger seeds (5.7 cm against 38 to 45 mm), glaucous when young. The sources consulted do not comment on these differences.

Hybrids

Hill (1996) records populations intermediate between Cycas lane-poolei and Cycas basaltica north of the Mitchell River area, on the Mitchell Plateau. The Flora of Australia adds that the population of the southern Mitchell Plateau, intermediate in most characters, may be of hybrid origin, but that it appears more or less stabilised and deserves study as a possible distinct species. No cultivated hybrid is documented.

Possible confusion

  • Cycas armstrongii, from the Top End (Northern Territory): very similar leaves, but a slenderer plant, with a trunk less than 12 cm across, seeds under 38 mm and cataphylls with fine orange and grey down, not woolly;
  • Cycas basaltica, from the northern Kimberley, on basalt: flat leaves with persistent white down, leaflets with slightly recurved margins, thin cataphylls;
  • Cycas furfuracea, from the King Leopold Ranges: strongly keeled blue leaves, downy leaflets, soft cataphylls.

Taxonomy

Cycas lane-poolei is a name accepted by The World List of Cycads, the Flora of Australia and GBIF; POWO could not be consulted directly. Charles Austin Gardner published it in 1923 in the bulletin of the Forests Department of Western Australia (Bulletin 32: 30–32, fig. E), after introducing it in March 1922 in a newspaper article in the Western Australian Mail. In 1932 Julius Schuster made it a variety of Cycas media, together with Cycas basaltica and Cycas furfuracea; Hill considers that treatment of little value.

In his revision of the Australian Cycas (Telopea, 1996), Ken Hill reinstated the species and placed it in section Cycas, subsection Endemicae, series Armstrongianosae (a series he had created in 1994), with Cycas armstrongii, Cycas conferta, Cycas orientis, Cycas canalis and Cycas xipholepis and, in New Guinea, Cycas papuana: cycads with hard, prickly cataphylls and flat leaflets whose margins are not recurved and which have almost no hypodermis. He notes, however, that the thick orange wool it shares with Cycas canalis and Cycas maconochiei may point to a closer relationship with those species. De Laubenfels and Adema (1998) also accepted it as a species, but in a very broad sense: they included in it Cycas conferta, Cycas canalis and Cycas xipholepis, which The World List of Cycads keeps as distinct species, and compared it with Cycas media and Cycas calcicola, suggesting a possible hybrid origin. For the reader, this means that works following de Laubenfels and Adema may use “Cycas lanepoolei” in a broader sense, covering plants now placed in other species.

Etymology and history

The epithet honours Charles Edward Lane-Poole (1885–1970), a former Conservator of Forests of Western Australia (Haynes 2022, as cited by The World List of Cycads). Gardner himself collected the type on 29 June 1921 near Mount Hann, in the Kimberley (Gardner 1444, holotype in Perth); he cited it as number 1444 of the Forests Department herbarium. He introduces Lane-Poole as the former Conservator of Forests of Western Australia and recalls that the species had first been reported at that spot as a “fruiting palm” by F.S. Brockman, the state’s Surveyor General, during the exploring expedition he led in 1901. No history of introduction into cultivation is documented.

Common names

No common name specific to this species is recorded in English. Gardner’s 1922 article was headed “Cycad palm”, a generic English expression rather than a name for this species.

In the wild

Cycas lane-poolei is known from several scattered populations in the north-west Kimberley: around Mount Hann, on the Mitchell Plateau and in the Mitchell River area, in the upper Drysdale River valley near Mount Jameson, and on Mount Agnes. It grows mostly on sandy soils, in savanna woodland of Eucalyptus miniata, Eucalyptus tetrodonta or Corymbia latifolia (Hill 1996; Flora of Australia). This is the typical habitat of the cycads of its series, which occupy deep, lateritised sandy soils on flat ground in the savannas of northern Australia. GBIF holds 118 records, almost all herbarium specimens from Australia (consulted on 21 October 2026).

The original description places the type locality north-east of Mount Hann, near the source of the Moran River, on gently sloping sandy ground in open forest of Eucalyptus latifolia and Eucalyptus spenceriana, and records fruit in June and July. Its pollinator and seed dispersers are not documented for this species in the sources consulted.

Conservation status and regulation

Cycas lane-poolei is listed as Least Concern (LC) by the IUCN, in the assessment by John Donald Bösenberg published in version 2022-1 of the Red List (reference checked on Crossref); the Red List data relayed by GBIF confirm the category (consulted on 21 October 2026). An earlier assessment, by Ken Hill, was published in 2010. The Red List itself could not be consulted. Hill (1996) did not consider the species threatened.

Like every species in the genus except Cycas beddomei, Cycas lane-poolei is listed in CITES Appendix II, through the listing of the family Cycadaceae, included since 4 February 1977. The listing carries annotation #4 (CoP20 version, in force since 5 March 2026): seeds, pollen, seedlings or tissue cultures obtained in vitro and transported in sterile containers, and cut flowers of artificially propagated plants, are exempt, whereas international trade in the plants themselves requires an export permit. Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States apply CITES through their own national legislation; in the European Union the species is in Annex B of Regulation (EC) No 338/97, whose annexes in force are set by Commission Regulation (EU) 2026/1383, applicable since 29 June 2026. Species+, the official CITES database, names the species, with Australia as the range state, and confirms this status (searches of 3 and 12 October 2026). This general information does not replace the official texts: check the rules in force before buying or exchanging plants, ask the seller for proof of origin and prefer plants raised from cultivated seed.

Growing Cycas lane-poolei

In short: no growing advice specific to Cycas lane-poolei has been published, and no grower’s report was found. Its natural habitat, tropical savanna on sand, suggests that it needs full sun, a very free-draining substrate and heat; this is a deduction from its habitat, not a growing result.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

No planting in the open ground is documented outside its range. Only frost-free tropical climates, such as that of its native Kimberley, can be considered with some confidence; the savanna woodland on deep sand in which it grows points to full sun and perfect drainage.

Container cultivation

In temperate climates it is a plant for a pot under glass. For the Australian Cycas in general, the French nurseryman Simon Lavaud (Cycadales.eu, 2021), in a note on growing them in Europe that does not mention this species, stresses their need for heat and strong light, recommends a substrate with a high mineral fraction (even pure pumice) and warns that watering in cool weather carries a very high risk of root rot: he waters generously when nights reach 18 to 20 °C (64.4 to 68 °F) and days 30 °C (86 °F), reduces watering when temperatures fall below 20 °C (68 °F), and says it can be stopped altogether when nights drop below 10 °C (50 °F). In his ranking by difficulty he classes as “very difficult” all the species of the Northern Territory except Cycas angulata, together with Cycas furfuracea, which he describes as the species that grows “furthest west”, found “only in the Western Territory” (“Territoire de l’Ouest” in his French text, presumably Western Australia, where Cycas lane-poolei also grows). Searches of the French forum Fous de palmiers and the Italian forum Tropicamente found nothing on this species.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

No garden declares Cycas lane-poolei in BGCI PlantSearch (search of 21 October 2026), and the species is absent from the inventory of cycads in British, American and Australian gardens compiled for this site (19 October 2026). The online catalogue of Montgomery Botanical Center (Florida) holds one accession, 931095, under the unchecked name “Cycas sp. (lane-poolii)”, which by the garden’s numbering dates from 1993 (search of 21 October 2026); whether this plant belongs to Cycas lane-poolei could not be checked. No report from an English-speaking grower could be read; PalmTalk and Dave’s Garden could not be consulted.

Propagation

The plant is dioecious: a male and a female plant are needed to obtain seed. No germination data specific to the species have been published. Seeds are exempt from CITES under annotation #4; ask for seed from cultivated plants.

Pests and diseases

No pest or disease specific to the species is documented. Cycad scales, including the Asian cycad scale, Aulacaspis yasumatsui, can affect all cultivated species. Simon Lavaud’s general warning about root rot in cool, wet substrate (see Container cultivation) applies to the Australian Cycas as a group.

Cold hardiness

No cold-tolerance data exist for Cycas lane-poolei. Its range in the north-west Kimberley is tropical, and none of the sources consulted says whether the plant tolerates frost.

Mediterranean experience

No growing result has been published in Europe, in the open ground or in a pot, and no dated frost event concerns the species. The Jardin zoologique tropical at La Londe-les-Maures, in the south of France, has published no observation on it. According to Simon Lavaud, the Australian Cycas grow very slowly in Europe, partly because the temperatures they need are rarely reached there for more than three months a year; he also points out that the rainfall pattern is reversed, the coolest months being the wettest, which affects how they must be grown. This suggests that Mediterranean climates, such as those of coastal California or southern Australia, are unlikely to suit it outdoors; this is a deduction, not a tested result.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

No cold reading or dated growing report was found, either on forums or from botanic gardens. No USDA zone can be given. In the UK and in most of the United States and southern Australia, keep it frost-free under glass; outdoors, it can only be considered in tropical climates.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity analysis specific to Cycas lane-poolei has been found. The risk is, however, well documented in the genus: Cycas tissues, and the seeds above all, contain cycasin, which is converted during digestion into methylazoxymethanol, toxic to the liver and nervous system, along with a neurotoxic amino acid, BMAA. The ASPCA lists the sago palm (Cycas revoluta) as poisonous to dogs, cats and horses. Until proven otherwise, treat the plant as poisonous: keep seeds and leaves out of reach of children and pets, and wear gloves to clean the 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 in the sources consulted.

Frequently asked questions

Who was Lane-Poole?

Charles Edward Lane-Poole (1885–1970), a former Conservator of Forests of Western Australia, to whom Gardner dedicated the species.

Where does Cycas lane-poolei grow?

In the north-west Kimberley, in Western Australia, in scattered populations in eucalypt savanna woodland on sand.

Is it a variety of Cycas media?

No. Schuster classified it as such in 1932, but Hill reinstated it as a species in 1996, and current checklists follow him.

How can it be told from Cycas armstrongii?

By its larger size, its trunk more than 12 cm across, its larger seeds and its cataphylls covered in thick orange wool.

Is it endangered?

No. The IUCN has listed it as Least Concern since 2022.

Is it hardy?

Almost certainly not. No cold data exist; it is a plant of tropical savanna.

Is it poisonous?

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

Further reading on Succulentes

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Gardner, C.A. (1923). Botanical notes. Bulletin of the Forests Department of Western Australia 32: 30–32. [Original description; full text of the description read (pp. 30–31, fig. E): description, measurements, habitat, phenology, type, etymology. Primary source.]
  • Gardner, C.A. (1922). Western Australian trees. No. 48. Cycad palm (Cycas lane-poolei). Western Australian Mail, 16 March 1922: 30. [Newspaper article preceding the original description; cited after Hill (1996), not consulted.]
  • Hill, K.D. (1996). A taxonomic revision of the genus Cycas (Cycadaceae) in Australia. Telopea 7(1): 1–64. doi:10.7751/telopea19963040 [Reinstatement of the species, description, placement in section Cycas, subsection Endemicae, series Armstrongianosae (pp. 4–5, 31, 40–42; the series heading on p. 31 carries the misprint “Armstrongiosae”, whereas the key and figures use Armstrongianosae, the spelling adopted by IPNI); reference revision for Australia; full text consulted.]
  • Hill, K.D. (1998). Cycadaceae. In: McCarthy, P.M. (ed.), Flora of Australia 48: 597–635. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne. [Consulted in its updated online version (profiles.ala.org.au).]
  • Laubenfels, D.J. de & Adema, F. (1998). A taxonomic revision of the genera Cycas and Epicycas gen. nov. (Cycadaceae). Blumea 43(2): 351–400. [Very broad species concepts: Cycas conferta, Cycas canalis and Cycas xipholepis placed in Cycas lanepoolei (pp. 365–366); full text consulted.]
  • Bösenberg, J.D. (2022). Cycas lane-poolei. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022-1: e.T41991A68903302. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-1.RLTS.T41991A68903302.en [Current assessment (LC); reference checked on Crossref, category relayed by GBIF; Red List page not consulted (access blocked).]
  • Hill, K.D. (2010). Cycas lane-poolei. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2010-3: e.T41991A10597419. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2010-3.RLTS.T41991A10597419.en [Previous assessment; reference checked on Crossref, not consulted.]
  • Haynes, J.L. (2022). Etymological compendium of cycad names. Phytotaxa 550(1): 1–31. doi: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. doi:10.5281/zenodo.21958524 [Reference checklist; consulted directly.]