Cycas × longipetiolula: a natural hybrid from Yunnan, China

Cycas × longipetiolula is the name given to cycads from south-eastern Yunnan, China, that are intermediate between Cycas bifida and Cycas multipinnata, two species with divided leaflets that grow side by side in a few populations in the province. It was published in 1996 by Wang Dingyue as a species, Cycas longipetiolula, the name under which plants still circulate in collections. It is one of the disputed names in the genus Cycas: Ken Hill (2004, 2008) regarded it as a natural hybrid between those two species, and The World List of Cycads places it in the synonymy of that hybrid, whereas the Flora of China treats it as a plain synonym of Cycas multipinnata. The IUCN has not assessed it.

Key facts about Cycas × longipetiolula

Name and status: Cycas longipetiolula D.Yue Wang (1996), published as a species; a synonym of the hybrid Cycas bifida × Cycas multipinnata according to The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15); accepted as the named hybrid Cycas × longipetiolula by the World Checklist of Vascular Plants, the database behind POWO (through GBIF); a synonym of Cycas multipinnata in the Flora of China (see Taxonomy)
Former names and synonyms: Cycas longipetiolula D.Yue Wang; included in Epicycas multipinnata by de Laubenfels and Adema (1998)
Parents: Cycas bifida and Cycas multipinnata (Hill 2004, 2008), both in section Stangerioides
Family: Cycadaceae, order Cycadales
Common names: no common name attested in any language
Natural range: south-eastern Yunnan (Yuanjiang River valley, Gejiu county; border of Hekou and Gejiu counties), from the two collections cited by Hill (2008)
IUCN status: Not Evaluated (NE); the parents are assessed as Vulnerable (Cycas bifida) and Critically Endangered (Cycas multipinnata)
CITES and other protection: CITES Appendix II through the listing of the family Cycadaceae (seeds exempt under annotation #4); Annex B in the European Union; the name is not in Species+
Documented hardiness: no measurement; a nursery in the Canary Islands describes it as tolerating short, light frosts of −2 °C (28.4 °F) (2010) (see Cold hardiness)
Light and soil: not documented for the taxon; the parents grow in forest or scrub on limestone or red soils (Hill 2008)
Habit and adult size: original description not consulted; no above-ground trunk, like both parents; adult leaves about 4 m long according to the same nursery
In the UK, US and Australia: no garden in these countries declares it in BGCI PlantSearch; not in the online catalogue of Montgomery Botanical Center
Toxicity: no analysis specific to the taxon; treat it as poisonous, like all Cycas (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Cycas × longipetiolula

It is recognised first of all through its parents: a plant intermediate between Cycas bifida, with forked leaflets, and Cycas multipinnata, whose leaves are divided several times over. Wang’s original description (1996) could not be consulted, and no modern flora describes the taxon in its own right: the Flora of China merges it into Cycas multipinnata, and Hill treats it as a hybrid.

Both parents, on the other hand, are described in detail by Hill (2008). Cycas bifida has an underground stem, two to five leaves 2 to 5 m long, a petiole of 110 to 160 cm (35 to 50% of the leaf) and 40 to 80 leaflets that fork dichotomously, close to the base, up to three times. Cycas multipinnata also has an underground stem, but only one or two leaves, 2 to 6 m long, with a petiole of 100 to 350 cm (50 to 65% of the leaf), and they are bipinnate: each leaflet is itself divided in a feather-like way into forked segments. An intermediate form would therefore be expected to have leaflets more divided than in Cycas bifida and less than in Cycas multipinnata; that is a deduction from Hill’s interpretation, not a published description.

The few observations from cultivation point the same way. Canarius, a nursery in the Canary Islands that was selling it in 2010, shows a young leaf that is already bipinnate and describes the adult leaves as “incredibly ornamental and fern-like”, about 4 m long. A grower in Ravenna, Italy, notes on the Tropicamente forum that his young plant began producing leaves with characteristic leaflets in June 2011, and remarks on its dark green leaves in 2014. On the same forum, in 2009, another member lists Cycas longipetiolula among the “bipinnate” Cycas whose young leaves unfurl in countless little curls that will become the segments.

As Hill (2008) points out, a hybrid swarm is made up of highly variable plants, because characters segregate in the generations after the first: two plants bearing this name may look quite different.

Hybrids

According to Hill, the taxon is itself a natural hybrid. Hill (2008) explains that Cycas lack specialised pollinators and seem to have weak fertility barriers, so that the main barrier between species is geographical distance, and reproductive isolation breaks down where two species grow within pollination range of each other. He notes that Cycas multipinnata appears to grow together with Cycas bifida in several populations in China, where a range of intermediate forms can be interpreted as a hybrid swarm; the type of Cycas longipetiolula is one of those forms.

Hill cites two collections of these hybrids, both in Yunnan: the type, from the Yuanjiang River valley in Gejiu county (23 April 1994), and a collection made on 6 July 2000 on the border of Hekou and Gejiu counties. He gives no direction for the cross. The same pattern is found between Cycas bifida and Cycas dolichophylla, which in his view gave rise to Cycas multifrondis, another name published by Wang in 1996.

No hybrid raised in cultivation from Cycas × longipetiolula is documented.

Possible confusion

Cycas bifida: leaflets simply forked, up to three times, near the base; two to five leaves (Hill 2008). One of the two parents.
Cycas multipinnata: one or two bipinnate leaves, with a petiole taking up more than half the leaf (Hill 2008); the Flora of China even describes them as tripinnate. The other parent, and the species into which the Flora of China sinks Cycas longipetiolula.
Cycas debaoensis, from Guangxi: the other Cycas with bipinnate leaves, which Hill (2008) separates from Cycas multipinnata by its shorter leaves with narrower, thicker leaflets.
Cycas multifrondis: another of Wang’s names (1996), interpreted by Hill as a hybrid form between Cycas bifida and Cycas dolichophylla, but accepted as a species by The World List of Cycads; nurseries often offer the two names together.

When buying, a young plant labelled Cycas longipetiolula cannot be identified with certainty: the first leaves are not characteristic, and according to Hill the name covers variable forms rather than a stable type.

Taxonomy

The reference sources disagree: the name has been treated in turn as a species, as a synonym of Cycas multipinnata and as a hybrid.

Wang (1996) described Cycas longipetiolula as a new species in Cycads in China (page 68). The type was collected on 23 April 1994 in the Yuanjiang River valley, Yunnan, by D.Y. Wang and H. Peng (no. 5523); the holotype is at the herbarium of Fairy Lake Botanical Garden, Shenzhen (SZG), with an isotype at NF (Hill 2008; The World List of Cycads).
De Laubenfels and Adema (1998), who moved Cycas multipinnata into a separate genus, Epicycas, also listed the name there as a synonym (according to The World List of Cycads).
The Flora of China (Chen and Stevenson 1999) lists Cycas longipetiolula D.Y.Wang among the synonyms of Cycas multipinnata.
Hill, Nguyen and Loc (2004) treat it, according to The World List of Cycads, as a hybrid between Cycas multipinnata and Cycas bifida.
Hill (2008), in his revision of the Cycas of China, excluded it from the species: the type is a form of the hybrid swarm between the two species; under Cycas bifida he cites it as the hybrid Cycas bifida × Cycas multipinnata.
Zheng and colleagues (2017), in their review of the Cycas of China, do not count it among the country’s 23 species, but mention it in their table of protected areas (see In the wild).
The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15) regards it as a synonym of the hybrid Cycas bifida × Cycas multipinnata.
The World Checklist of Vascular Plants, which feeds POWO, accepts it as a named hybrid, Cycas × longipetiolula D.Y.Wang, from Yunnan (GBIF). IPNI, for its part, records the name as it was published, as a new species.

The “×” sign placed before the epithet marks a hybrid that bears a name of its own. This site presents the taxon under that hybrid name, following Hill’s interpretation as taken up by The World List of Cycads and the World Checklist of Vascular Plants, while flagging the synonymy of the Flora of China. In practice, a plant sold under this name is not a distinct species but an intermediate form of the bifida–multipinnata pair or, according to the Flora of China, a Cycas multipinnata.

Etymology and history

The epithet combines the Latin longus, “long”, with petiolulus, the botanical term for a petiolule, the small stalk of a leaflet. The Flora of China indeed describes, in Cycas multipinnata, secondary leaflets borne on a petiolule 0.5 to 5 cm long. Wang’s own explanation is given in the original description, which could not be consulted.

The name was published in 1996, two years after Cycas multipinnata (1994), in the multi-author book Cycads in China, edited by F.X. Wang and H.B. Liang. It was in the European nursery trade by 2010 at the latest: a nursery in the Canary Islands listed it that year among the bipinnate Chinese Cycas it offered, and a grower in Ravenna had a young plant in 2011.

Common names

No common name is attested, in English or any other language.

In the wild

Cycas × longipetiolula is known only from south-eastern Yunnan, where the ranges of its parents meet. The two collections cited by Hill (2008) come from the Yuanjiang River valley, in Gejiu county, and from the border of Hekou and Gejiu counties. The World Checklist of Vascular Plants gives Yunnan.

The habitat of the hybrid itself has not been described; that of the parents has. Cycas multipinnata grows in closed evergreen forest on limestone on very steep slopes (Hill 2008), or on red soils over granite or limestone in somewhat shaded monsoon forest along valleys, at 200 to 1,000 m (Flora of China); Cycas bifida in dense scrubby woodland, often on red terra rossa soils on and around karst limestone outcrops, sometimes on shales (Hill 2008).

Zheng and colleagues (2017) link Cycas longipetiolula to the Mount Dawei nature reserve in Yunnan, but report that in the field only cultivated plants were found, at Jinping.

Conservation status and regulation

Cycas × longipetiolula has not been assessed by the IUCN (NE, according to GBIF), which is consistent with a name that most authors do not treat as a species. Both parents are threatened: Cycas bifida is listed as Vulnerable (VU, 2022) and Cycas multipinnata as Critically Endangered (CR, reassessment of 2023). Zheng and colleagues (2017) note that all Cycas species in China have had first-grade state protection since 1999.

The name does not appear in Species+, the CITES database, but the whole family Cycadaceae has been in Appendix II since 4 February 1977, so the plant falls under that appendix. The listing carries annotation #4 (CoP20 version, in force since 5 March 2026): 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. In the European Union the family falls under Annex B of Regulation (EC) No 338/97, whose annexes in force are set by Regulation (EU) 2026/1383, applicable since 29 June 2026 (Species+, consulted on 31 October 2026).

This general information does not replace the official texts: check the regulations in force before any purchase or exchange, and prefer plants raised from seed in cultivation.

Growing Cycas × longipetiolula

Growing information comes from a single nursery and a single amateur grower; no institution has published any. Together they describe a plant that did better than Cycas bifida for an Italian grower, but that the nursery considers frost-tender.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

According to the Canary Islands nursery (2010), the plant grows well in cool, wet conditions, and these bipinnate Chinese Cycas appear to prefer the cool, wet winters of the Canaries to their hot, dry summers. This is a commercial source and should be read as a grower’s account. No in-ground result has been published from the Mediterranean, North America or Australia, and no public garden is known to grow it outdoors.

Container cultivation

A grower in Ravenna, on the Adriatic coast of Italy, writes on the Tropicamente forum in May 2014 that of his Chinese Cycas it is Cycas longipetiolula that grows best for him, with dark green leaves, whereas his Cycas bifida died and his Cycas debaoensis quickly spoils its leaves. He does not say whether this plant is in a pot or in the ground, nor how it is protected in winter; in the same thread he mentions keeping his young cycads indoors and growing Cycas debaoensis in a cold greenhouse.

In the United Kingdom and in most of the United States and southern Australia, growing it in a deep pot of very free-draining mix, in partial shade and kept frost-free under glass in winter, is the prudent option; that is a deduction from these reports and from the forest habitat of the parents, not a published result. The Jardin zoologique tropical at La Londe-les-Maures, in the south of France, has published no observation on this taxon.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

No public collection in these three countries is known to hold the taxon. In BGCI PlantSearch (consulted in October 2026), it is declared under one name or the other only by Fairy Lake Botanical Garden in Shenzhen and Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden in China, and by the Madeira Botanical Garden in Funchal, Portugal; a listing shows that a garden declared the plant at some point, not that a living plant is there today. It does not appear in the online catalogue of Montgomery Botanical Center in Florida.

Propagation

Like all Cycas, Cycas × longipetiolula is dioecious: a male and a female plant are needed to obtain seed. Plants in the trade are raised from seed, but the origin of that seed (collected from hybrids in the wild or in cultivation) is not documented. If the taxon is indeed a hybrid, as Hill thinks, its seed will not necessarily reproduce the mother plant: the offspring of a hybrid swarm are highly variable. Seeds are exempt from CITES under annotation #4.

Pests and diseases

No pest or disease specific to the taxon is documented. Scale insects, including the Asian cycad scale Aulacaspis yasumatsui, threaten all cultivated Cycas, and a waterlogged substrate leads to root rot.

Cold hardiness

No reliable measurement exists. The only published figure is a commercial one: the Canary Islands nursery stated in 2010 that the plant tolerates short, light frosts of −2 °C (28.4 °F), without giving the age of the plants, the length of the cold spell or the growing conditions.

The Ravenna report gives neither minimum temperatures nor cold damage. No dated cold episode and no in-ground result have been published in Europe, North America or Australia, and no source gives a USDA zone for the taxon. In the United Kingdom, keep it frost-free under glass.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity data specific to Cycas × longipetiolula have been published, but the risk is documented for the genus: in Cycas, all parts of the plant are poisonous and the seeds most of all. They contain cycasin, which is converted in the body into methylazoxymethanol, toxic to the liver and nervous system, along with a neurotoxic amino acid, BMAA (NC State Extension; ASPCA). The ASPCA lists the sago palm (Cycas revoluta) as toxic to dogs, cats and horses.

Wear gloves to handle seeds and their fleshy coat, and keep seeds and leaves out of reach of children and pets. If any part is swallowed, contact a poison centre, a doctor or a vet straight away.

Traditional uses

No use is documented for this taxon.

Frequently asked questions

Is Cycas longipetiolula a species or a hybrid?

A hybrid, for most recent sources. Wang described it as a species in 1996, but Hill (2004, 2008) regarded it as a natural hybrid between Cycas bifida and Cycas multipinnata, an interpretation followed by The World List of Cycads and by the database behind POWO, which writes it Cycas × longipetiolula.

Is it a synonym of Cycas multipinnata?

For some sources, yes. De Laubenfels and Adema (1998) and the Flora of China (1999) placed it in the synonymy of Cycas multipinnata; later treatments see it as a hybrid of which Cycas multipinnata is only one parent.

How can it be identified?

With difficulty. It should have leaflets more divided than those of Cycas bifida and less than those of Cycas multipinnata, but no modern description says so precisely, and a hybrid swarm produces very variable plants.

How does it differ from Cycas multifrondis?

By its supposed parents. Both names were published by Wang in 1996, but Hill linked Cycas multifrondis to the Cycas bifida × Cycas dolichophylla pair, and The World List of Cycads accepts it as a species.

Is it hardy?

Barely, as far as is known. A Canary Islands nursery says it tolerates short frosts of −2 °C (28.4 °F), with no further detail, and no independent measurement exists; keep it frost-free in winter.

Is it protected?

Yes, like all Cycas. It falls under CITES Appendix II and Annex B in the European Union; the IUCN has not assessed it, but both parents are threatened.

Is it poisonous?

It should be assumed to be. It has not been analysed, but all Cycas studied contain serious toxins, especially in the seeds.

Sources

Reference sites

The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15), Cycas longipetiolula: https://cycadlist.org/scientific_name/151 — place of publication (Cycads in China: 68, 1996), type (Wang and Peng 5523, 23 April 1994, Yuanjiang River valley, holotype SZG), status as a synonym of the hybrid Cycas bifida × Cycas multipinnata, treatments by Chen and Stevenson (1999), de Laubenfels and Adema (1998), Hill and colleagues (2004) and Hill (2008). Checklist of the IUCN Cycad Specialist Group, reliable; consulted on 31 October 2026.
GBIF, World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Cycas ×longipetiolula: https://api.gbif.org/v1/species/206945376 — accepted hybrid, Yunnan; IUCN status “Not Evaluated” through the GBIF API. Kew checklist that feeds POWO, reliable; consulted through the API on 31 October 2026.
IPNI, Cycas longipetiolula: https://www.ipni.org/n/993113-1 — publication as a new species, author D.Yue Wang, original distribution (Yunnan, Fujian, Guangdong). Reference nomenclatural index; consulted through the API on 31 October 2026.
Flora of China (eFloras), Cycas multipinnata: http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=210000345 — Cycas longipetiolula in synonymy, description of Cycas multipinnata (petiolules, habitat, altitude, counties). National flora, reliable; consulted on 31 October 2026.
Species+, Cycas bifida and Cycadaceae: https://speciesplus.net/species#/taxon_concepts/14010/legal — CITES Appendix II (annotation #4, since 5 March 2026), EU Annex B (since 29 June 2026); the name Cycas longipetiolula is absent. Official database; consulted through the API on 31 October 2026.
BGCI PlantSearch: https://plantsearch.bgci.org/ — taxon declared by Fairy Lake Botanical Garden (Shenzhen), Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden and the Madeira Botanical Garden; no garden in the UK, US or Australia. Global database of garden lists, undated per garden: a listing does not prove a living plant; consulted on 31 October 2026.
Montgomery Botanical Center, online catalogue (BG-BASE, “Montgomery – Cycads”): https://www.montgomerybotanical.org/research/living-collection/ — no entry for the taxon. Garden’s own catalogue, reliable for presence; consulted on 31 October 2026.
Canarius, nursery blog (Canary Islands), “The new Cycads from China – Cold Hardy?”: https://www.canarius.com/blog/the-new-cycads-from-china-cold-hardy-add-your-comments/ — juvenile bipinnate leaf, adult leaves about 4 m, preference for cool, wet conditions, frosts of −2 °C (5 January 2010). Commercial source.
Tropicamente forum (Italy), “Cycas bifida e Cycas debaoensis”: https://www.tropicamente.it/forums/topic/cycas-bifida-e-cycas-debaoensis/ — young plant grown in Ravenna (2011), best growth among several Chinese Cycas and dark green leaves (May 2014). Dated growing reports, cited anonymously.
Tropicamente forum (Italy), “Le foglie nuove delle Cycadacee”: https://www.tropicamente.it/forums/topic/le-foglie-nuove-delle-cycadacee/ — unfurling of the young leaves of bipinnate Cycas, including Cycas longipetiolula (2009). Dated observation, cited anonymously.
ASPCA Animal Poison Control, Sago Palm: https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/aspca-poison-control/toxic-and-non-toxic-plants/sago-palm — toxicity of cycads to dogs, cats and horses, cycasin, symptoms. Veterinary poison control centre, reliable; genus-level information.
NC State Extension Plant Toolbox, Cycas revoluta: https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/cycas-revoluta/ — cycasin present in all parts of the plant. University extension service, reliable; genus-level information.

Bibliography

Wang, D.Y. (1996). Taxonomy of Cycas in China. In: Wang, F.X. & Liang, H.B. (eds), Cycads in China, pp. 33–142 (Cycas longipetiolula, p. 68). [Protologue; reference taken from The World List of Cycads and IPNI.]
de Laubenfels, D.J. & Adema, F. (1998). A taxonomic revision of the genera Cycas and Epicycas gen. nov. (Cycadaceae). Blumea 43(2): 351–400. [Synonym of Epicycas multipinnata (p. 391); according to The World List of Cycads.]
Chen, C.J. & Stevenson, D.W. (1999). Cycadaceae. In: Wu, Z.Y. & Raven, P.H. (eds), Flora of China 4: 1–7. Science Press, Beijing, and Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St Louis. [Synonymy with Cycas multipinnata.]
Hill, K.D., Nguyen, H.T. & Loc, P.K. (2004). The genus Cycas (Cycadaceae) in Vietnam. The Botanical Review 70(2): 134–193. doi:10.1663/0006-8101(2004)070[0134:TGCCIV]2.0.CO;2 [Treated as a hybrid of Cycas multipinnata and Cycas bifida (p. 190), according to The World List of Cycads.]
Hill, K.D. (2008). The genus Cycas (Cycadaceae) in China. Telopea 12(1): 71–118. doi:10.7751/telopea20085804 [Hybridism in Cycas, Cycas bifida × Cycas multipinnata hybrids and their collections, excluded name, type and herbaria, descriptions of the parents.]
Zheng, Y., Liu, J., Feng, X. & Gong, X. (2017). The distribution, diversity, and conservation status of Cycas in China. Ecology and Evolution 7(9): 3212–3224. doi:10.1002/ece3.2910 [Mount Dawei reserve, only cultivated plants found at Jinping, protection in China.]
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.]

Cycas x longipetiolula