Zamia ipetiensis

Zamia ipetiensis is a small cycad of eastern Panama, known from Panamá province and the Kuna Yala region, where it grows in primary and secondary tropical moist forest between 100 and 500 m above sea level. Described in 1993 and named after Ipetí, the locality where it was discovered, this species of the genus Zamia has an underground stem and usually a single large leaf at a time. The IUCN rates it Endangered (2022 assessment), and whether it is really distinct from its neighbour Zamia cunaria is debated.

Key facts about Zamia ipetiensis

  • Accepted name: Zamia ipetiensis D.W.Stev. (1993), 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; Calonje and colleagues (2018) treat Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis as a single entity, which The World List of Cycads does not follow
  • Family: Zamiaceae, order Cycadales
  • Common names: no name attested, in English or in any other language
  • Natural range: Panama, Panamá province and Kuna Yala; 100 to 500 m (original description)
  • IUCN status: Endangered (EN B1ab(i,ii,iii,v)), 2022 assessment
  • 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 tropical moist forest; in cultivation, filtered light and a free-draining compost according to a nursery
  • Habit and adult size: underground, subglobose stem up to 10 cm across; usually one leaf 0.5 to 1.5 m long, with 3 to 12 pairs of leaflets; middle leaflets 20 to 40 cm by 5 to 8 cm in the original description, 22 to 50 cm by 3.5 to 7 cm in the 2018 comparison
  • In the UK, US and Australia: Montgomery Botanical Center (three accession numbers), Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and the University of Hawaii at Hilo (BGCI); Cairns Botanic Gardens; no British record
  • Toxicity: no data specific to the species; treat it as poisonous, like all cycads (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Zamia ipetiensis

According to the original description (Stevenson, 1993, pages 7 to 9, figure 4), Zamia ipetiensis has an underground, subglobose stem up to 10 cm in diameter and oval cataphylls 3 to 4 cm long and 4 to 5 cm wide. It usually bears a single erect leaf (sometimes three), 0.5 to 1.5 m long, with a petiole 15 to 50 cm long, sparsely to densely prickly, and 3 to 12 pairs of narrowly to broadly oblanceolate leaflets, wedge-shaped at the base, acuminate and finely denticulate at the tip; the large middle leaflets measure 20 to 40 cm by 5 to 8 cm. The male cones, cream to tawny, cylindrical to ovoid-cylindrical, measure 4 to 6 cm by 1 to 1.5 cm, on a stalk of 2 to 4 cm, and their scales bear pollen sacs on both faces.

For the female cones and seeds, the English description repeats word for word the figures given for Zamia cunaria: wine-red to dark reddish brown cones 15 to 20 cm by 5 to 7 cm, and pink to light red seeds 1.5 to 2 cm long. The key in the same paper, however, gives female cones of 10 cm at most, and the Latin diagnosis dark reddish brown female cones and red seeds, so these figures should be treated with caution. In 2010 Calonje and colleagues credited the species with leaves of at most 1.7 m, female cones with a blunt tip and uniformly tawny or cream male cone scales (Calonje and colleagues, 2010).

The characters below come from the comparison published in 2018 by Michael Calonje, Cristina López-Gallego and Jonatan Castro, who examined Zamia ipetiensis alongside two related Colombian species (one photographed specimen comes from Kuna de Wargandí):

  • Stem: underground, unbranched, usually bearing a single leaf at a time; the cone axes, male and female, are covered in long hairs (villous).
  • New leaves: green or pinkish brown as they emerge.
  • Leaflets: 4 to 32 per leaf; middle leaflets 22 to 49.7 cm by 3.5 to 7 cm; margin finely denticulate towards the tip.
  • Male cones: scales cream, or cream with a tip speckled tawny or brown; pollen sacs borne on both faces of the scales, a rare character in the genus.
  • Female cones: scales arranged in 7 to 10 vertical rows of 5 to 14, with a flat or slightly raised outer face.
  • Seeds: hard inner coat (sclerotesta) 12 to 15 mm by 8 to 10 mm.

Two horticultural sources add their own picture. The naturalist Jay Vannini describes a subterranean caudex, which he calls branched, with a solitary leaf up to 95 cm long carrying few leaflets, and notes that the population is said to stand out for the shape of its leaflet tips and for the very large number of male cones (about twelve) that larger plants can carry in the wild (Vannini, 2019). The American nursery Jungle Music describes a small to medium-sized plant with a stem usually under 4 or 5 in (10 to 13 cm), two or sometimes three leaves 2 to 3 ft (60 to 90 cm) long, and paired, somewhat puffy-looking green leaflets up to 10 in (25 cm) long and 2 to 3 in (5 to 7.5 cm) wide, smooth-edged except for a few fine teeth at the tip.

Hybrids

No hybrid, natural or raised in cultivation, is documented.

Possible confusion

Zamia ipetiensis belongs to a small group of species with an unbranched underground stem, a leaf that is often solitary, villous cone axes and pollen sacs on both faces of the male cone scales. According to Calonje and colleagues (2018):

  • Zamia cunaria, also from eastern Panama: the authors found no character to separate it from Zamia ipetiensis and treat the two names together; The World List of Cycads nevertheless keeps both species;
  • Zamia pyrophylla, from the Chocó of Colombia: leaflets with entire margins, new leaves mixing orange, yellow and red, and clearly raised female cone scales;
  • Zamia paucifoliolata, from Valle del Cauca (Colombia): only 2 to 20 leaflets, broader (6 to 11.5 cm), with entire margins, light green new leaves and seeds over 18 mm long.

The key published by these authors fits on one line: leaflets finely denticulate at the tip and female cone scales flat or barely raised, in Panama, for Zamia ipetiensis; leaflets entire and scales clearly raised, in Colombia, for the other two. In the key of Stevenson (1993), Zamia ipetiensis is separated from Zamia cunaria by its oblanceolate leaflets, finely toothed near the tip only (rather than strongly toothed in the upper third), and by female cones of 10 cm at most (20 to 30 cm in Zamia cunaria).

Taxonomy

Zamia ipetiensis is an accepted name according to The World List of Cycads and GBIF; POWO could not be consulted directly. It was published in 1993 by Dennis Wm. Stevenson, of the New York Botanical Garden, in a paper in Brittonia on the Zamiaceae of Panama (“The Zamiaceae in Panama with comments on phytogeography and species relationships”), which also described Zamia cunaria and Zamia dressleri. Stevenson acknowledged that Zamia ipetiensis resembles Zamia cunaria in habit, solitary leaf, leaf size and shape, and leaflet size and texture; he regarded the two as sister species, found in two separate mountain ranges and probably separated by vicariance, close to Zamia muricata of Venezuela (Stevenson, 1993).

In 2018, describing Zamia paucifoliolata, Michael Calonje and colleagues treated Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis as a single entity, for lack of any diagnostic character separating them (a personal observation by Michael Calonje, they specify). This merger has not been formalised: The World List of Cycads, of which Michael Calonje is one of the authors, still accepts both names in 2026, with distinct but neighbouring ranges. Vannini (2019) also finds the plant mostly indistinguishable from Zamia cunaria, with which it is essentially sympatric, and considers that it deserves critical review. Readers should therefore know that the limits of the species remain under discussion.

Relationships. The transcriptome phylogeny of Lindstrom and colleagues (2024), which included a sample from Kuna Yala, confirms a Cunaria clade of four species, already recognised by Calonje and colleagues (2019) on a consistent set of morphological characters: Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis, which occur on the Isthmus of Panama, and Zamia pyrophylla and Zamia paucifoliolata, found within the western Andes of South America.

Etymology and history

The epithet ipetiensis refers to Ipetí, the locality in eastern Panama where the species was discovered; The World List of Cycads, following Haynes (2022), who cites Jones (2002), places it in Darién, whereas the range given by the same database names Panamá province and Kuna Yala.

The type was collected on 22 January 1989 in Panamá province by Dennis Wm. Stevenson and I. Valdespino (no. 1159); the original description does not give the locality and cites only one other specimen, collected by S. Knapp and colleagues (no. 4558). The holotype is kept at the New York Botanical Garden (NY), with isotypes at Fairchild (FTG), the Missouri Botanical Garden (MO), the University of Panama (PMA) and Utrecht (U).

The species has reached collections through seed: in 2010 members of the French Fous de palmiers forum placed a group order for seed of Zamia ipetiensis with a seed supplier, without later reporting any cultivation results, and Vannini (2019) shows a potted plant in a private collection in Guatemala.

Common names

No common name is attested for this species, in English or in Spanish.

In the wild

Zamia ipetiensis is endemic to eastern Panama: The World List of Cycads records it in Panamá province and in Kuna Yala. According to its original description, it is endemic to a small region of Panama, where it grows between 100 and 500 m in primary and secondary tropical moist forest (Stevenson, 1993). Vannini (2019) describes it as a relict of tropical rainforest on the Caribbean coast of eastern Panama and in adjacent secondary vegetation; the original description gives only Panamá province for the type. Its pollinators and phenology are not documented.

Conservation status and regulation

Zamia ipetiensis is rated Endangered (EN) by the IUCN under criteria B1ab(i,ii,iii,v), in an assessment by J.D. Bösenberg published in 2022 (The World List of Cycads; GBIF gives the same category); an amended version of that assessment was later put online. The criteria indicate a small extent of occurrence, with a continuing decline in that extent, in the area occupied, in habitat quality and in the number of mature plants. An earlier assessment, by A. Taylor, was published in 2010 (reference checked on Crossref). The Red List itself could not be consulted, and no other source details the threats.

Like all Zamia except Zamia restrepoi, which is in Appendix I, Zamia ipetiensis is covered by the listing of the genus in CITES Appendix II, in force since 4 February 1977. Annotation #4 exempts in particular seeds, pollen, seedlings or tissue cultures obtained in vitro and transported in sterile containers, and cut flowers of artificially propagated plants; international trade in the plants themselves requires an export permit. 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. Species+ names the species and confirms this status (checked on 3 October 2026).

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

Growing Zamia ipetiensis

No growing advice specific to Zamia ipetiensis has been published in the scientific literature, but the species is in cultivation: it is held by several botanical gardens, grown by nurseries and shown in private collections. The American nursery Jungle Music states that it can only be grown in gardens that never see frost, and that it needs filtered light and a free-draining soil. Simon Lavaud, of the French specialist nursery Cycadales.eu, lists it among the Zamia of the lowland forests of Central and South America, a group he rates as difficult outside the tropics because European climates are generally too cool and too dry for them (Lavaud, 2023).

Its origin, the moist forest of the Isthmus of Panama between 100 and 500 m, suggests that it needs warmth all year and humid air; no published trial confirms this.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

Outdoor cultivation is only possible in a frost-free tropical climate (Jungle Music), in filtered light and free-draining soil. The gardens that declare it are in southern Florida, Hawaii and tropical Queensland.

Container cultivation

In temperate climates it is a plant for a heated glasshouse or a bright, heated interior. For the lowland group to which he assigns the species, Lavaud (2023) recommends a glasshouse, conservatory, well-lit heated room or even an indoor growing chamber. Its small stem and usually single leaf make it manageable in a pot.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

In short: held by American gardens and by Cairns; no British record.

  • United States: Montgomery Botanical Center (Coral Gables, Florida) lists three older accession numbers under Zamia ipetiensis in its online catalogue (200035, 2000278 and 2000279). BGCI also records it at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (Miami) and at the University of Hawaii at Hilo (queried on 25 October 2026).
  • United Kingdom: no record in BGCI or in the online catalogues of British gardens.
  • Australia: the Cairns Botanic Gardens (Queensland) declare it to BGCI.

In Europe, BGCI also lists the Prague Botanical Garden. A BGCI declaration shows that a garden held the plant at some point, not that it is alive there today, and the sources do not say whether these plants are outdoors or under glass.

Propagation

No data specific to the species. Like all Zamia, it has separate male and female plants, and it is propagated from fresh seed. Seeds are exempt from CITES under annotation #4, but buyers should make sure they come from cultivated plants. The large number of male cones reported on wild plants (Vannini, 2019) does not, on its own, say anything about seed production in cultivation.

Pests and diseases

No pest or disease specific to the species has been documented. In cultivation, Zamia are chiefly at risk from rot in cold, waterlogged compost and from scale insects.

Cold hardiness

No data exist on the cold tolerance of Zamia ipetiensis. It is a plant of tropical moist forest between 100 and 500 m; the only horticultural statement, from Jungle Music, is that it can be grown outdoors only where there is no frost. The British nursery Trebrown places it in USDA zone 10a, a commercial classification.

Mediterranean and European experience

No cultivation result has been published in France or elsewhere in Europe, either in the ground or in a pot, and no dated frost episode concerns the species; the French seed order of 2010 led to no published report. For readers in Mediterranean-type climates such as California or southern Australia, it remains a plant for heated glass.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

No cold record exists. The gardens that declare it are in southern Florida, Hawaii and tropical north Queensland; none says whether its plants are outdoors. In the UK it needs a heated glasshouse.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity study specific to Zamia ipetiensis has been published. The risk is, however, well documented in cycads: Zamia contain toxic glycosides (cycasin, macrozamin), from which methylazoxymethanol is derived, a compound toxic to the liver and nervous system, and the ASPCA cites cycasin and BMAA, a neurotoxic amino acid, for Zamia furfuracea, which it lists as toxic to 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 is documented for this species.

Frequently asked questions

Where does the name Zamia ipetiensis come from?

From Ipetí, a locality in eastern Panama where the species was discovered. It was described in 1993 by Dennis Wm. Stevenson.

Where does it grow?

Only in eastern Panama, in Panamá province and Kuna Yala, in tropical moist forest between 100 and 500 m.

How can it be recognised?

By its underground stem, which often carries a single leaf, its 3 to 12 pairs of large oblanceolate leaflets, 3.5 to 8 cm wide according to the sources and finely toothed at the tip only, and its cones with hairy axes.

Is it the same species as Zamia cunaria?

Perhaps. Botanists found no character to separate them in 2018, and a field naturalist finds them mostly indistinguishable, but The World List of Cycads still accepts both names. The question is not settled.

Is it endangered?

Yes. The IUCN rates it Endangered (2022 assessment), because of a small range and a decline in habitat and in the number of adult plants.

Can it be grown outside the tropics?

Only under glass. A nursery states that it can be grown outdoors only where there is never frost; in temperate climates it needs a heated glasshouse, filtered light and a free-draining compost.

Is it hardy?

In all likelihood, no. No cold data exist; it is a tropical forest plant for a heated glasshouse.

Is it poisonous?

It must be assumed so. No analysis specific to the species exists, but the cycads studied contain serious toxins, mainly in the seeds.

Further reading on Succulentes

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Stevenson, D.W. (1993). The Zamiaceae in Panama with comments on phytogeography and species relationships. Brittonia 45(1): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.2307/2806850 [Original description; full text read: description, type, habitat and elevation, comparison with Zamia cunaria, key.]
  • Calonje, M., López-Gallego, C. & Castro, J. (2018). Zamia paucifoliolata, a new species of Zamia (Zamiaceae, Cycadales) from Valle del Cauca, Colombia. Phytotaxa 385(2): 85–93. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.385.2.4 [Peer-reviewed article; full text read.]
  • Calonje, M., Stevenson, D.W., Calonje, C., Ramos, Y.A. & Lindström, A.J. (2010). A new species of Zamia from Chocó, Colombia (Cycadales, Zamiaceae). Brittonia 62(1): 80–85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12228-009-9094-8 [Full text read; comparison of Zamia pyrophylla with Zamia cunaria and Zamia ipetiensis.]
  • 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 Kuna Yala; Cunaria clade; full text consulted.]
  • Bösenberg, J.D. (2022). Zamia ipetiensis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T42155A69839117; amended version e.T42155A243405877. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-1.RLTS.T42155A243405877.en [Red List assessment; DOIs checked on Crossref; Red List page not consulted.]
  • Taylor, A. (2010). Zamia ipetiensis. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2010: e.T42155A10669619. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2010-3.RLTS.T42155A10669619.en [Previous assessment; reference checked on Crossref, 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.]