Zamia disodon

Zamia disodon is a small cycad of north-western Colombia, known only from the moist lowland and foothill forests of the Urabá region, in the department of Antioquia. This species of the genus Zamia, described in 2001, has an underground stem and a few leaves with broad, thin leaflets marked by raised veins, whose margins carry teeth of two sizes. It is rated Endangered by the IUCN and is practically unknown in cultivation.

Key facts about Zamia disodon

  • Accepted name: Zamia disodon D.W.Stev. & Sabato (2001), accepted by The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15) and by GBIF; POWO could not be consulted directly
  • Former names and synonyms: none
  • Family: Zamiaceae, order Cycadales
  • Common names: no name attested, in English or in any other language
  • Natural range: Colombia, department of Antioquia (municipalities of Dabeiba, Apartadó, Carepa, Necoclí and San Pedro de Urabá)
  • IUCN status: Endangered (EN), criteria B1ab(iii,v)+2ab(iii,v); C2a(i), assessment published in 2022
  • CITES and other protection: CITES Appendix II (whole genus, since 1977; seeds exempt under annotation #4); Annex B in the European Union
  • Documented hardiness: no data (see Cold hardiness)
  • Light and soil: in the wild, primary and secondary rainforest on clay soils; herbarium collections from about 30 to 300 m, but 400 to 800 m according to the original description; no cultivation data
  • Habit and adult size: underground, tuberous stem 5 to 8 cm across; 2 to 4 leaves about 50 cm long, with 3 to 5 pairs of leaflets 12 to 20 cm by 6 to 10 cm (original description)
  • In the UK, US and Australia: no record in BGCI, in the Montgomery Botanical Center catalogue or in the online catalogues of British and Australian gardens
  • Toxicity: no data specific to the species; treat it as poisonous, like all cycads (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Zamia disodon

The leaflets give it away: broad, elliptic, thin as a membrane, with raised veins on the upper side and a serrate margin in which some teeth near the tip are themselves toothed. Calonje and colleagues, who revised its group in 2021, treat this as the distinctive feature of the species. The original description, published in 2001 in the Flora de Colombia, gives the following measurements:

  • Stem: underground, tuberous, 5 to 8 cm in diameter.
  • Cataphylls: triangular at the base with a linear-lanceolate tip, 3 to 6 cm long and 1 to 2 cm wide.
  • Leaves: 2 to 4, erect or slightly arching, oblong, about 50 cm long; petiole cylindrical, up to 25 cm long, with a few short prickles; rachis cylindrical, usually unarmed, up to 25 cm long, with 3 to 5 pairs of leaflets.
  • Leaflets: membranous, elliptic, stalkless, slightly sickle-shaped, not grooved, with an acute tip; the middle leaflets are 12 to 20 cm long and 6 to 10 cm wide; margin conspicuously serrate, always with some doubly serrate teeth near the tip.
  • Cones: unknown when the species was described.

According to Stevenson and Sabato, it is the only species in the whole order of cycads with doubly serrate teeth on the leaflet margin. With Zamia hymenophyllidia, it is also the only one with membranous leaflets, but the latter has only tiny teeth; in many other respects it recalls Zamia obliqua, which has neither membranous leaflets nor double teeth (Stevenson, 2001). The transcriptome study of Lindstrom and colleagues (2024) uses Zamia disodon as its example of leaflets with visible, raised venation, as opposed to the deeply pleated leaflets of species such as Zamia skinneri.

Calonje and colleagues (2021) also attribute a set of shared features to its whole group, the “Manicata clade”: cones borne on very long stalks (usually more than 20 cm), rather flat cone scales, small seeds with a very thin fleshy coat, and small male cones.

Hybrids

No natural or garden hybrid has been documented.

Possible confusion

The species of the Manicata clade have very different leaflets, which makes them fairly easy to tell apart. The key of Calonje and colleagues (2021) separates Zamia disodon, with elliptic, membranous leaflets and raised veins, from:

  • Zamia manicata, from the Colombian Chocó and neighbouring Panama, whose leaflets have a short stalk hollowed by a channel and a glandular collar;
  • Zamia restrepoi (formerly Chigua restrepoi), from the department of Córdoba, the only Zamia whose leaflets have a midrib;
  • Zamia melanorrhachis and Zamia sinuensis, with lanceolate to linear, stiffer leaflets, flat and sickle-shaped in the first, strongly wavy in the second;
  • Zamia imbricata, described in 2021 in the same paper, with strongly overlapping leaflets.

Outside this group, the original description compares it with Zamia hymenophyllidia, from Amazonia, with membranous leaflets and tiny teeth, and with Zamia obliqua, with thicker, simply toothed leaflets.

Taxonomy

Zamia disodon is an accepted name according to The World List of Cycads and GBIF; POWO could not be consulted directly. The species was described by Dennis W. Stevenson and Sergio Sabato in the cycad treatment of the Flora de Colombia (volume 21, pages 38 to 40, figure 4, 2001). The Latin diagnosis separates it from related species by its leaflets, some of which are doubly serrate towards the tip. According to The World List of Cycads, the type specimen was collected on 26 September 1986 by D. Restrepo, I. Turner and L. Turner in the department of Antioquia, at 200 m; the holotype is kept at the National Herbarium of Colombia (COL), with an isotype at New York (NY). The name has never changed.

Recent phylogenetic work places the species in the Manicata clade, a well-supported group of Zamia from northern Colombia that also includes Zamia manicata, Zamia melanorrhachis, Zamia restrepoi and two species described in 2021, Zamia imbricata and Zamia sinuensis (Calonje et al., 2021). The close kinship of these plants was not obvious, so different are their leaflets. Lindstrom and colleagues (2024), working from a sample from Antioquia, confirmed this northern Colombian subgroup with Zamia disodon, Zamia manicata, Zamia restrepoi and Zamia sinuensis; they did not sample Zamia melanorrhachis or Zamia imbricata, but consider them likely members on morphological grounds. They describe the group’s shared characters as toothed leaflets, female cone scales with relatively flat shields and male scales with a much-reduced fertile part.

Etymology and history

The epithet comes from the Greek di-, “two”, and odōn, “tooth”, in reference to the leaflet margin with teeth of two sizes (Haynes, 2022, cited by The World List of Cycads). The original description explains it in the same way, through the “biserrate” teeth that characterise the species.

One of the two authors, Sergio Sabato, was a botanist at the Department of Plant Biology of the University of Naples Federico II, as his affiliation in a 1998 paper on Mexican Zamia in Delpinoa, the journal of the Naples Botanical Garden, shows. In 2013, Acuña-Castillo and Marín-Méndez published a study of the leaflet anatomy of Zamia disodon and Zamia restrepoi. No history of introduction into cultivation has been documented.

Common names

No vernacular name is attested, and there is no English name: the plant is known only by its scientific name.

In the wild

Zamia disodon grows in the Magdalena-Urabá moist forests ecoregion of north-western Colombia. The herbarium collections cited by Calonje and colleagues (2021) come from the municipalities of Dabeiba, Apartadó, Carepa, Necoclí and San Pedro de Urabá (Antioquia), between about 30 and 300 m. Some populations at Necoclí and San Pedro de Urabá were visited by the Colombian Cycad Society as part of the national action plan for the conservation of Colombian cycads.

The original description of 2001 gave a somewhat different picture: a species known only from the type locality and one other nearby locality, probably also present in neighbouring parts of Panama, on clay soils in primary and secondary rainforest between 400 and 800 m. Yet the type itself and another specimen cited in the same text had been collected at 200 m. The more numerous recent collections therefore place the species at lower altitudes, and its presence in Panama has not been confirmed: The World List of Cycads records it only from Colombia.

According to Calonje and colleagues, this group of Zamia remains poorly studied, because of security problems in the region and heavy deforestation, which has greatly reduced suitable habitat. Its pollinator is not documented, and its cones were still unknown when the species was described.

Conservation status and regulation

Zamia disodon is rated Endangered (EN) on the IUCN Red List, in the assessment by Cristina López-Gallego published in 2022, under criteria B1ab(iii,v)+2ab(iii,v) and C2a(i): a small range and area of occupancy, a decline in habitat and in mature individuals, and a small population in which no subpopulation exceeds a limited number of adults (The World List of Cycads; GBIF gives the same category; the Red List itself could not be consulted). As early as 2001, Stevenson and Sabato considered it very rare: its cones were unknown, which might indicate a very low rate of reproduction, and the Colombian botanist Rodrigo Bernal regarded its habitat as extremely threatened.

Like all Zamia except Zamia restrepoi, Zamia disodon falls under CITES Appendix II, where the genus has been listed since 4 February 1977. International trade in the plants requires an export permit issued by the country of origin. The listing carries annotation #4: seeds, pollen, seedlings and tissue cultures obtained in vitro and transported in sterile containers are not covered by CITES. In the European Union the species falls under Annex B of Regulation (EC) No 338/97, whose current list is set by Regulation (EU) 2026/1383, applicable since 29 June 2026.

This general information does not replace the official texts: check the regulations in force before buying or exchanging plants, ask the seller for proof of origin and prefer plants raised from seed in cultivation.

Growing Zamia disodon

No cultivation of the species has been documented, in a botanical garden or by private growers, and no growing advice specific to it has been published. The only practical pointers come from the French specialist nursery Cycadales.eu. Simon Lavaud places Zamia disodon among the “difficult” Zamia of the lowland forests of Central and South America, and illustrates the lowland Colombian species, which have a reputation for being hard to grow, with a photograph of Zamia disodon (Lavaud, 2023). For this group he recommends:

  • a free-draining compost and water that are neutral to acid;
  • night temperatures around 22 °C (71.6 °F), with only brief spells at about 15 °C (59 °F) tolerated;
  • day temperatures of 28 to 30 °C (82.4 to 86 °F); most species tolerate 34 to 35 °C (93.2 to 95 °F), but heat peaks can damage new leaves;
  • high air humidity, between 70 and 90 per cent;
  • in Europe, a glasshouse, conservatory, bright heated room or growth chamber.

These are general recommendations for a group of species, not measurements made on Zamia disodon.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

No outdoor trial has been documented anywhere. The species comes from frost-free tropical rainforest at low altitude; in-ground planting could only be considered in humid tropical gardens.

Container cultivation

No container-growing report has been published. Its small size and underground stem would suit a pot, but its thin, membranous leaflets suggest that it needs constantly high humidity, which in cool climates means a heated, humid glasshouse; this is a deduction from its habitat and from the advice of Cycadales.eu, not a documented result.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

In short: no documented cultivation in these three countries. The species does not appear in BGCI PlantSearch, nor in the online catalogue of Montgomery Botanical Center in Florida (both queried on 25 October 2026), nor in the online catalogues of the British and Australian gardens checked on 19 October 2026 (Edinburgh, Cambridge, Chelsea Physic Garden, Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, Mount Annan, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria). If plants exist in private collections, no published source mentions them.

Propagation

No data. Like all Zamia, the species has separate male and female plants: propagation would require fertilised seed, which is exempt from CITES under annotation #4 but must come from plants of legal origin.

Pests and diseases

No pest or disease has been documented. For his group of lowland tropical Zamia, Lavaud (2023) warns that suboptimal conditions lead to weak growth and a risk of root rot.

Cold hardiness

No data exist on the tolerance of Zamia disodon to cold, heat or drought. It is a species of humid tropical lowland and foothill forest, without frost.

Mediterranean and European experience

No cultivation has been documented in France or elsewhere in Europe. Lavaud (2023), who lives in Montpellier, in southern France, observes that the European climate is on the whole too cool and too dry for the Zamia of lowland tropical forests: even in the two warmest months, nights in Montpellier, around 19 °C (66.2 °F), stay below those of their native habitats. Under a Mediterranean climate, as in the UK, it would be a plant for a warm, humid glasshouse.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

No growing record exists. Trebrown, a British specialist nursery, gives the species a cold hardiness zone of 10a in its catalogue, without stating the basis of this commercial rating; it should not be taken as a measured limit.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity study specific to Zamia disodon has been published. The risk is, however, documented in the genus and in other cycads: Zamia contain toxic glycosides (cycasin, macrozamin), from which methylazoxymethanol is derived, and for Zamia furfuracea the ASPCA cites cycasin and BMAA, a neurotoxic amino acid, with vomiting, bloody diarrhoea and liver damage in dogs, cats and horses; the seeds are the most dangerous part. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, treat the plant as poisonous: keep seeds and leaves out of reach of children and animals, and wear gloves to clean seeds. If any part is swallowed, contact a poison centre, a doctor or a vet straight away.

Traditional uses

No use has been documented.

Frequently asked questions

Where does Zamia disodon grow?

In north-western Colombia, in the department of Antioquia, in the moist forests of the Urabá region; recent collections range from about 30 to 300 m, while the original description gave 400 to 800 m.

What does “disodon” mean?

“Two kinds of teeth”, from the Greek: the leaflet margin carries large and small teeth, some of which are themselves toothed.

How can it be recognised?

By its elliptic leaflets, broad and thin as a membrane, with raised veins and double teeth near the tip. The plant stays low: an underground stem and a few leaves about half a metre long.

Is it endangered?

Yes. The IUCN has rated it Endangered since 2022; deforestation in the Urabá region is the main threat cited for its group.

Is it related to Zamia restrepoi?

Yes. Both belong to the Manicata clade, a group of northern Colombian Zamia whose leaflets differ greatly from one species to another; molecular data confirm the group.

Can it be grown?

No cultivation has been documented. A specialist nursery places it among the difficult Zamia that need a warm, humid glasshouse; any plant should come from artificial propagation and travel with a CITES permit.

Further reading on Succulentes

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Stevenson, D.W. (2001). Orden Cycadales. Flora de Colombia 21: 1–91 (Zamia disodon D.W.Stev. & Sabato: 38–40, fig. 4). Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá. [Original description; digital copy read.]
  • Calonje, M., Castro Hernández, J. et al. (2021). Two new species of Zamia (Zamiaceae, Cycadales) from the Magdalena-Urabá moist forests ecoregion of northern Colombia. Phytotaxa 497(1): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.497.1.1 [Open-access article; full text consulted.]
  • Lindstrom, A., Habib, S., Dong, S., Gong, Y., Liu, J., Calonje, M., Stevenson, D. & Zhang, S. (2024). Transcriptome sequencing data provide a solid base to understand the phylogenetic relationships, biogeography and reticulated evolution of the genus Zamia L. (Cycadales: Zamiaceae). Annals of Botany 134(5): 747–768. https://doi.org/10.1093/aob/mcae065 [Sample from Antioquia; northern Colombian subgroup (Manicata clade) confirmed; leaflet venation; full text consulted.]
  • Acuña-Castillo, R. & Marín-Méndez, W. (2013). Leaflet anatomy of Zamia disodon D.W.Stev. & Sabato and Zamia restrepoi (D.W.Stev.) A.Lindstr. Caldasia 35(1): 1–9. [Cited after Calonje and colleagues (2021); not consulted.]
  • Lavaud, S. (2023). Comment cultiver les Zamia en climat tempéré. Cycadales.eu. [Growing advice for groups of species; read directly.]
  • López-Gallego, C. (2022). Zamia disodon. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T42109A69833464. [Current assessment (EN); reference taken from The World List of Cycads, Red List page not consulted.]
  • Haynes, J.L. (2022). Etymological compendium of cycad names. Phytotaxa 550(1): 1–31. https://doi.org/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. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21958524 [Reference checklist; consulted directly.]