Cycas miquelii

Cycas miquelii Warb. is a name in the genus Cycas, not a separate species. Published by Warburg in 1900 for a cultivated plant said to come from southern China, it is now a synonym of Cycas revoluta, the sago palm, according to The World List of Cycads, the World Checklist of Vascular Plants and the revision of the Chinese cycads by Ken Hill (2008). The name has nevertheless been used for two other species: the Flora of China applies it to Cycas sexseminifera, a dwarf cycad of the limestone karst of Guangxi and northern Vietnam, and the type chosen for it in 1998 by de Laubenfels and Adema is a specimen of Cycas clivicola from southern Thailand. This page sets out these uses and points to the species concerned.

The name and its type

Warburg published Cycas miquelii in 1900 in Monsunia (vol. 1, pp. 179 and 181). He cited no type and gave its distribution only as “Süd-China”, southern China. The epithet is spelt miquelii, with a double i, by The World List of Cycads, the World Checklist of Vascular Plants and Hill (2008).

According to Hill (2008), Warburg was referring indirectly to a plant mentioned by Miquel in 1851: a cycad grown in the Amsterdam botanic garden, brought from the Bogor (Buitenzorg) botanic garden in Java and said to come from southern China, which Miquel had wrongly identified as Cycas inermis. Two herbarium sheets of that plant, kept at Utrecht (U028127 and U028129), can therefore serve as original material, and Hill designated them as the lectotype of the name. They show somewhat aberrant forms of Cycas revoluta without spines on the petiole, so Cycas miquelii falls into the synonymy of Cycas revoluta.

In their 1998 revision, de Laubenfels and Adema transferred the name to Epicycas, a genus described in that work, as Epicycas miquelii (Warb.) de Laub. Warburg’s material having been destroyed in Berlin, they chose a neotype: a specimen collected by A. F. G. Kerr in Chumphon province, southern Thailand (Kerr 11873, at Kew). Hill (2008) rejected this neotype as redundant, since the Utrecht sheets can be used, and as contrary to the original description, since the specimen does not come from southern China. The genus Epicycas is no longer recognised: The World List of Cycads treats it as a synonym of Cycas.

Today, The World List of Cycads lists Cycas miquelii among the synonyms of Cycas revoluta, with Epicycas miquelii as a name based on the same type, and the World Checklist of Vascular Plants, the database behind POWO, also treats it as a synonym of Cycas revoluta.

Other uses of the name

Wang (1996) and then the Flora of China (Chen and Stevenson 1999) used the name Cycas miquelii for the cycads of the limestone mountains of western Guangxi and northern Vietnam. The Flora of China lists under it Cycas sexseminifera, Cycas brevipinnata, Cycas longisporophylla, Cycas septemsperma and Cycas spiniformis, with the Chinese name 石山苏铁 (shi shan su tie). Hill (2008) showed that this was a misapplication: these plants belong to Cycas sexseminifera. In Chinese literature, in the Flora of China and on labels that follow it, “Cycas miquelii” therefore means that species.

The concept of Epicycas miquelii in de Laubenfels and Adema (1998) was, according to Hill (2008), a confused one that included Cycas sexseminifera and other taxa, and their neotype belongs to Cycas clivicola, a cycad of the limestone cliffs of southern Thailand and neighbouring countries. Texts that follow the 1998 revision may therefore use the name for plants that are not Cycas revoluta.

The confusion persists in horticultural databases. The plant profile of the Royal Horticultural Society filed under Cycas sexseminifera gives “Japanese sago palm”, a common name of Cycas revoluta, and lists Cycas miquelii and Cycas sexseminifera as synonyms; a search for “Cycas miquelii” in the online catalogue of Montgomery Botanical Center returns two accepted names, Cycas revoluta and Cycas sexseminifera (both consulted on 31 October 2026).

What a plant labelled “Cycas miquelii” may be

A label alone does not settle it: a plant sold or grown as “Cycas miquelii” may be Cycas revoluta, Cycas sexseminifera or Cycas clivicola, and the 1998 concept also covered other species. The characters below, taken from the descriptions used on the species pages of this site, help to tell the three apart. Asking where the plant or its seeds came from is just as useful.

  • Cycas revoluta (southern Japan, mainly the Ryukyu Islands, and possibly Fujian): trunk usually 1 to 3 m; stiff, deep green, semi-glossy leaves 50 to 150 cm long, clearly keeled (V-shaped in cross-section); crowded, narrow leaflets 3 to 6 mm wide whose margins are strongly rolled under; short petiole, 6 to 10 cm, normally spiny for most of its length, although the plant behind the name miquelii had no petiole spines; downy ovules (Hill 2008).
  • Cycas sexseminifera (limestone karst of Guangxi and northern Vietnam): dwarf plant, trunk 0 to 1 m tall (Hill 2008), generally underground according to the Flora of China; short, flat or slightly keeled leaves 50 to 120 cm long; stiff, sharp-pointed leaflets 6 to 10 mm wide according to Hill (2008), 14 to 18 mm according to the Flora of China, with flat or slightly recurved margins; petiole 10 to 40 cm, often spineless but not consistently so; hairless ovules (Hill 2008).
  • Cycas clivicola (limestone cliffs of southern and eastern Thailand, northern Peninsular Malaysia, Cambodia and southern Vietnam): trunk up to 7 or 8 m, upright or hanging from the rock, swollen at the base, with pale grey to yellowish, almost smooth bark; flat leaves with a petiole of 15 to 25 cm bearing short spines; stiff, crowded leaflets 5 to 9 mm wide with flat margins (Thai Department of Agriculture 2019; MyBIS; smooth bark also noted by Hill 2008).

In short, a keeled leaf with narrow leaflets rolled under at the edges is the mark of Cycas revoluta (Hill 2008). Flat leaflets point away from it: towards Cycas sexseminifera for a dwarf plant from the karst of Guangxi or Vietnam, towards Cycas clivicola for a tall, smooth-barked trunk from Thailand or Malaysia. Each species page gives the full description, with growing information.

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Warburg, O. (1900). Cycadaceae. In: Warburg, O. (ed.), Monsunia 1: 178–181. Engelmann, Leipzig. [Protologue of Cycas miquelii (pp. 179, 181); reference as given by Hill (2008) and The World List of Cycads.]
  • Miquel, F.A.W. (1851). Analecta Botanica Indica. Sulpke, Amsterdam. [Plant grown in Amsterdam, from Bogor, identified as Cycas inermis (p. 28); cited from Hill (2008).]
  • Wang, D.Y. (1996). Systematic classification and taxonomy. In: Wang, F.X. & Liang, H.B. (eds), Cycads in China, pp. 9–142. Guangdong Science and Technology Press, Guangdong. [Use of the name Cycas miquelii for the plants of Guangxi; cited from Hill (2008).]
  • de Laubenfels, D.J. & Adema, F. (1998). A taxonomic revision of the genera Cycas and Epicycas gen. nov. (Cycadaceae). Blumea 43(2): 351–400. [Epicycas miquelii and its neotype Kerr 11873 (K), Chumphon, p. 393.]
  • Chen, C.J. & Stevenson, D.W. (1999). Cycadaceae. In: Wu, Z.Y. & Raven, P.H. (eds), Flora of China, vol. 4: 1–7. Science Press, Beijing; Missouri Botanical Garden Press, St Louis. [Treatment under the name Cycas miquelii; text consulted on eFloras.]
  • Hill, K.D. (2008). The genus Cycas (Cycadaceae) in China. Telopea 12(1): 71–118. doi:10.7751/telopea20085804 [Lectotype of Cycas miquelii and its synonymy with Cycas revoluta, rejection of the 1998 neotype (a specimen of Cycas clivicola), misapplication of the name to Cycas sexseminifera, descriptions and distinguishing features.]
  • 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; synonymy of Cycas revoluta and of the genus Cycas.]