Zamia obliqua: slender-trunked cycad of Panama and Colombia

Zamia obliqua is a tree-forming cycad of the lowland rainforests of Panama and western Colombia, where it grows in the understorey from sea level to about 500 m. This species of the genus Zamia is recognised by its straight, slender, greyish trunk, which can exceed 5 m in the largest Colombian plants, and by its glossy green, papery leaflets with an oblique base, finely toothed towards the tip. Described in 1875 by the German botanist Alexander Braun from plants sent back from Colombia by Gustav Wallis, it was long confused with Zamia manicata. The IUCN rates it Least Concern (LC), but its Panamanian populations are scattered and often reduced to relics.

Key facts about Zamia obliqua

Accepted name: Zamia obliqua A.Braun (1875), accepted by The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15), by GBIF and by the World Checklist of Vascular Plants, on which POWO is based; POWO could not be consulted directly
Former names and synonyms: Zamia obliqua Regel ex Ducos (1877), a later, illegitimate homonym placed under this species; the name was also wrongly applied to Zamia manicata (see Taxonomy)
Family: Zamiaceae, order Cycadales
Common names: no English name; “maizito” in the Colombian Chocó (Flora de Colombia), “chigua macho” and “maicito” in Spanish (Species+)
Natural range: Colombia (Antioquia, Chocó, Valle del Cauca), Panama (Colón, Darién, Panamá Oeste) and, according to The World List of Cycads, Costa Rica (Puntarenas), a disputed record (see In the wild)
IUCN status: Least Concern (LC), 2022 assessment
CITES and other protection: CITES Appendix II (listing of the Zamiaceae, since 1977; seeds exempt under annotation #4); Annex B in the European Union; zero export quota set by Panama for wild-collected specimens
Documented hardiness: no data; a Californian nursery and a British nursery treat it as frost-tender (see Cold hardiness)
Light and soil: understorey of primary and secondary lowland rainforest and of low-elevation semi-deciduous forest; filtered light and free-draining, neutral to acid compost in cultivation
Habit and adult size: aerial trunk 0.5 to 5 m tall and 5 to 12 cm across; 5 to 20 leaves 1 to 2.5 m long
In the UK, US and Australia: Montgomery Botanical Center, Fairchild, the Huntington and four other American gardens (US); no British or Australian record
Toxicity: no data specific to the species; treat it as poisonous, like all cycads (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Zamia obliqua

A slender, straight trunk, numerous leaves and leaflets with an oblique base set it apart from the other Zamia of its region. The measurements below come from Dennis Stevenson’s treatment of the species in the Flora de Colombia (2001), based on Colombian plants; Braun’s shorter original description differs on several points (see below).

Trunk

The plant is tree-forming: its trunk is 0.5 to 5 m tall but only 5 to 12 cm in diameter. The Flora de Colombia describes it as straight, slender, smooth and greyish, and calls the species one of the most spectacular of the Neotropics. The phylogenetic study by Lindstrom and colleagues (2024) cites Zamia obliqua as a living example of a cycad with a slender and often branched stem. The cataphylls, the small scale-like leaves that protect the bud, have a triangular base and a long-acuminate tip, and measure 3 to 5 cm by 2 to 3 cm.

Leaves and leaflets

Each plant carries 5 to 20 leaves, 1 to 2.5 m long. The petiole, 30 to 70 cm long, is armed with many short prickles, and the rachis carries prickles in its lower third and 10 to 20 pairs of leaflets. The median leaflets, elliptic to obovate, are 5 to 10 cm long and 3 to 6 cm wide; papery, not grooved and stalkless, they have an oblique, wedge-shaped base, an acuminate tip and a finely toothed margin in the upper third. They are glossy green. The oblique base of the leaflets is the most constant feature of the species: it separates young plants, still without a trunk, from Zamia ulei, whose leaflets have a symmetrical base.

The Flora de Colombia treatment contains a contradiction: its description gives leaflets with an oblique base, but its closing comment lists “symmetrical leaflets” among the distinguishing characters; the key to the species in the same Flora keeps “falcate leaflets with an oblique base”. Jungle Music, a Californian nursery, describes larger leaflets on its plants, about 20 to 25 cm (8 to 10 in) long and 5 to 7.5 cm (2 to 3 in) wide, with unequal sides and toothed tips, on 5 to 10 pairs per leaf; these are measurements from cultivated plants, not from a botanical description.

Cones and seeds

The species is dioecious, with male and female plants. The male cones, yellowish to light brown, cylindrical to ovoid-cylindrical, are 4 to 6 cm long and 1 to 1.5 cm across, on a short peduncle of 2 to 4 cm. Their fertile scales carry pollen sacs on both faces, a character that separates them from those of Zamia manicata, which are fertile on the lower face only. The female cones, of the same colour, are 15 to 25 cm long and 5 to 8 cm across. The seeds, ovoid and red, measure 1 to 1.5 cm by 0.5 to 0.8 cm. The chromosome number is 2n = 18 (Norstog, 1980, cited by the Flora de Colombia).

What the original description said

Braun’s German diagnosis (1875) describes a species “smaller” than Zamia wallisii, with a fairly slender stem bearing several leaves at once and an “unarmed” petiole, with 2 pairs of leaflets in young plants and 4 to 6 pairs in older ones. The leaflets, thin, not very stiff and glossy green, are oblong-ovate, “somewhat unequal-sided”, narrowed into a short stalk and ending in a long, tail-like point; they are toothed in their upper half, with very sharp, close-set teeth, and have 25 to 30 veins, neither sunken above nor raised below. Braun adds only “in the warm region”. The unarmed petiole and the small number of leaflets differ clearly from the 2001 description (armed petiole, 10 to 20 pairs); no publication explains this difference.

Hybrids

No natural or garden hybrid involving Zamia obliqua has been documented. In Panama, however, it grows widely alongside Zamia imperialis and Zamia pseudoparasitica in the north of the central region (Taylor and colleagues, 2012), and Tang and colleagues (2024) recall cone-choice experiments in which the beetle living in the habitat of Zamia dressleri gathered on the cones of Zamia obliqua as readily as on those of other species, with no barrier to visits (Terry and colleagues, 2012); no hybridisation has been inferred from this.

Possible confusion

The documented confusions mainly concern species of Colombia and Panama:

Zamia manicata (Chocó, Antioquia, Darién): an underground stem, leaflets borne on a short stalk with a semicircular collar at the base of the blade, oblong leaflets up to 35 cm long, male cones on a long peduncle (15 to 30 cm) and wine-red to purple female cones; according to the Flora de Colombia, the two species are not closely related despite their long confusion (see Taxonomy);
Zamia ulei (Amazonia): trunkless young plants of Zamia obliqua resemble it, but its leaflets, only 3 to 6 pairs, have a symmetrical base, and its stem stays underground;
Zamia fairchildiana (Costa Rica, western Panama): Lindström and colleagues (2013) think that the only Costa Rican collection attributed to Zamia obliqua, a trunkless plant from the Golfo Dulce, is more likely a young Zamia fairchildiana, a very common species in that region whose young plants sometimes have toothed leaflets;
Zamia stevensonii and Zamia elegantissima (Panama): these two trunk-forming Zamia are its closest relatives according to Lindstrom and colleagues (2024); the new leaves of Zamia stevensonii emerge white, those of Zamia elegantissima cream (Taylor and colleagues, 2012).

The leaflets of Zamia obliqua are not pleated, which at once separates it from the large Panamanian Zamia with pleated leaflets such as Zamia imperialis or Zamia skinneri.

Taxonomy

Zamia obliqua A.Braun is an accepted name according to The World List of Cycads, GBIF and the World Checklist of Vascular Plants, on which POWO is based (read on GBIF, version of 4 June 2026); POWO itself could not be consulted. The name was published in 1875 in the Monatsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin (page 376), in an appendix to a paper by Braun on cycads. The holotype, kept in Berlin (B), was lost during the Second World War (Acuña-Castillo, 2010); Stevenson and Sabato (1986) therefore designated a neotype, a specimen chosen to replace it: Berthold Seemann’s collection no. 1569, made at Cabo Corrientes, Colombia, in December 1847 and kept at the Natural History Museum in London (BM), with an isoneotype at Kew (K).

A homonym and a long confusion

Two years after Braun, another Zamia obliqua, attributed to Regel and published by Ducos in L’Illustration horticole (1877, volume 24, page 140, plate 289), was described from a plate. This later name is illegitimate; The World List of Cycads lists it among the synonyms of Braun’s species.

The Flora de Colombia then traces a lasting confusion with Zamia manicata. In 1932 Schuster placed Zamia manicata in the synonymy of Zamia obliqua and published a description combining the trunks and cones of the latter with the leaves of the former; because of this error, Schultes redescribed Zamia manicata as Zamia madida in 1958. Later, the description of Zamia obliqua given by Gómez (1982) still matched Zamia manicata, and Stevenson considers the synonymy Gómez drew from it incorrect. For the reader, this means that older works call Zamia obliqua plants that are in fact Zamia manicata, and vice versa.

The Flora also summarises Braun’s description as mentioning stalkless leaflets and stems up to 2.5 m tall; the text of page 376, however, gives no stem height for Zamia obliqua and speaks of leaflets “narrowed into a short stalk”. No publication explains this difference.

Place in the genus

Molecular studies place Zamia obliqua among the Zamia of the Isthmus of Panama. In 2012 Taylor and colleagues placed it in the “Panama clade”, in the middle of a group of species with pleated leaflets (Zamia dressleri, Zamia neurophyllidia, Zamia skinneri), although its own leaflets are not pleated. The more recent transcriptome analysis of Lindstrom and colleagues (2024) groups Zamia obliqua, Zamia elegantissima and Zamia stevensonii in a subclade that is sister to that of Zamia dressleri and Zamia pseudoparasitica, in agreement with Calonje and colleagues (2019); the sequenced plant came from Darién.

Taylor and colleagues (2012) also raised a question that remains open: is Zamia obliqua, whose range is fragmented from central Panama to the Chocó and Cabo Corrientes, a single species, or several closely related species that arose in different clades and came to look alike under similar environmental pressures? They felt that more populations needed to be sampled to decide. Jay Vannini (2019) repeats the hypothesis and notes that plants from the Panama Canal area are generally smaller. The cone beetles point the same way: Tang and colleagues (2024) found that the beetles from Darién populations belong to the same species as those of central Panama, whereas those collected from Zamia obliqua in the Chocó, Colombia, appear to belong to another species.

Etymology and history

The epithet comes from the Latin obliquus, “oblique”. The sources do not read it in quite the same way: for Haynes (2022), as quoted by The World List of Cycads, it “apparently” refers to the oblique angle at which the leaflets are inserted on the rachis; for the Flora de Colombia, it refers to the oblique base of the leaflets. Braun himself does not explain the name; his diagnosis describes leaflets as “somewhat unequal-sided”.

The species is one of three cycads discovered in 1873 by the collector Gustav Wallis in New Granada, now Colombia, and described by Braun in the appendix to his 1875 paper, together with Zamia wallisii and Zamia montana. Braun states that all three were then in cultivation at the nursery of James Veitch: the species was therefore in cultivation from the moment it was described, although what became of this introduction is not documented.

Common names

No English name is attested. In Spanish, the Flora de Colombia gives “maizito” in the Chocó, and Species+ gives “chigua macho” and “maicito”. According to the Flora de Colombia, several Colombian Zamia are known locally as “chigua”, which has fed the confusion around Zamia chigua; “chigua macho” is therefore not a name specific to this species.

In the wild

Zamia obliqua lives in lowland rainforest, from sea level to about 500 m, from Panama to the Colombian department of Valle del Cauca. The World List of Cycads records it in Colombia (Antioquia, Chocó, Valle del Cauca), Panama (Colón, Darién, Panamá Oeste) and Costa Rica (Puntarenas).

In Colombia, the Flora de Colombia describes it in the understorey of primary and secondary rainforest, and notes that the Zamia species that tolerate very wet conditions, such as this one, generally have a well-developed trunk. The largest plants, up to 5 m tall with a wide crown, come from the lowland rainforests of western Colombia (Vannini, 2019, after Benavides and colleagues, 2010).

In Panama, Taylor and colleagues (2012), who studied more than 40 cycad populations on the isthmus between 1998 and 2010, describe it as a shrub or a large tree, found at several isolated sites in Darién, with disjunct relict populations near the Atlantic coast, in the Canal Zone and in the north-west of the former province of Panamá; Acuña-Castillo (2010) also cites disjunct populations in the Ngäbe-Buglé comarca. There it grows in lowland evergreen forest and low-elevation semi-deciduous forest, below 700 m, at temperatures of 24 to 30 °C (75.2 to 86 °F). According to them it is the only Panamanian Zamia with a widely disjunct range, and the most widespread after Zamia pseudoparasitica. They explain this wide distribution by abundant, unspecialised pollinators: Pharaxonotha beetles and weevils close to Rhopalotria visit its cones.

Tang and colleagues (2024) have since named these beetles. In central and eastern Panama, Zamia obliqua shares Pharaxonotha panamensis with four other Zamia of very different appearance (Zamia dressleri, Zamia elegantissima, Zamia nana and Zamia stevensonii), and the same weevil, Notorhopalotria panamensis, lives in its male cones; the Colombian populations of the Chocó harbour a different Pharaxonotha, still undescribed, and the beetles of western Panama and Costa Rica, if any, have not been studied.

According to the Flora de Colombia, only the largest plants produce female cones: plants must exceed 1 m in height before they reproduce, but the species then produces plenty of seed. A Colombian population has also been used in a quantitative genetics study of the heritability of morphological and physiological traits (Gómez-Lopera and López-Gallego, 2017).

A disputed presence in Costa Rica

The sources disagree about Costa Rica. Merello (2003) had recorded the species there from a single trunkless plant from the Golfo Dulce (R. Aguilar and colleagues no. 2970). Lindström and colleagues (2013) consider this collection more likely to be a young Zamia fairchildiana: the locality is more than 300 km west of the nearest Panamanian station, and the leaflet texture is unusual; Taylor and colleagues (2012) did not count it among the species of Costa Rica either. The revision of the Costa Rican Zamia by Acuña-Castillo (2010), a university thesis not published in a journal, on the contrary keeps the species for the country on the basis of the same collection, made at Bahía Chal, Mogos de Osa: in his view its two incomplete leaves show diagnostic characters (elliptic leaflets, finely toothed, on a short stalk without a gland), and he considers the species a conservation priority in Costa Rica. The World List of Cycads keeps Costa Rica (Puntarenas) in the range and shows a collection photographed in that province in November 2013 (R. Aguilar no. 14685). Species+ lists only Colombia and Panama, and Vannini (2019) considers the Costa Rican record very likely in error. The question remains open.

Conservation status and regulation

Zamia obliqua is rated Least Concern (LC) on the IUCN Red List, in an assessment by Cristina López-Gallego dated 19 June 2020 and published in 2022 (category confirmed by GBIF; the Red List page could not be consulted). An earlier assessment, by Dennis Stevenson, was published in 2010; its category could not be checked.

This favourable status for the range as a whole should not hide the local situation. In 2001 the Flora de Colombia reported that the species was considered extremely endangered in Panama because of habitat destruction, that little was known about the size of its Colombian populations, and that it remained vulnerable because only plants over 1 m tall reproduce; it also recalled that the species appeared in the 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants. In 2012 Taylor and colleagues still described the Panamanian populations as relics. In their view deforestation threatens the survival of the isthmus cycads, almost all of them understorey plants, and they found destruction and illegal collection in almost every population they visited.

From a regulatory point of view, Zamia obliqua is covered by CITES Appendix II under the listing of the family Zamiaceae (except the species in Appendix I), in force since 4 February 1977 according to Species+. Annotation #4 (the version in force since 5 March 2026) exempts in particular seeds, pollen, seedlings and tissue cultures obtained in vitro and transported in sterile containers, and cut flowers of artificially propagated plants; international trade in the plants themselves requires a 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; it was in Annex A until February 2017. Species+ also records a stricter national measure in Panama: since 19 June 2025 a zero export quota applies to wild specimens taken from the wild (CITES Notification No. 2025/079), except for scientific, personal, medical, educational or judicial purposes; it replaced a suspension of export permits for commercial trade in wild specimens decided in May 2023.

This general information, checked on 18 October 2026, 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 obliqua

Zamia obliqua is a plant for a warm glasshouse, a heated conservatory or a bright, warm room outside the tropics. No botanic garden has published growing guidelines for the species; the available advice comes from growers and nurseries.

Cycadales.eu, a specialist nursery in Montpellier, places it in its group of Zamia from Central America and the lowland forests of South America, rated “difficult” outside the tropics, while presenting Zamia obliqua, with Zamia nesophila, as a tree-forming species “regularly available in nurseries and fairly easy to grow” (Lavaud, 2023). For the group it recommends:

a free-draining, neutral to acid compost and neutral to acid water;
nights at about 22 °C (71.6 °F), with brief drops to about 15 °C (59 °F) tolerated;
days at 28 to 30 °C (82.4 to 86 °F), up to 34 to 35 °C (93.2 to 95 °F) for most species, with possible damage to young leaves during heat peaks;
high air humidity, 70 to 90%, for optimal growth.

According to the same source, European climates are too cool and too dry for these species, even in summer, and growing them in poor conditions gives weak growth, fragile plants and a risk of root rot. This is advice from experience for a group of species, not measurements made on Zamia obliqua.

Jay Vannini (2019), a naturalist and collector of Central American cycads, recommends it for the tropical garden, the conservatory or the warm glasshouse; he lists it among the Zamia that make exceptionally good pot plants throughout their lives, while writing, in his account of the species, that it “reportedly” handles pot culture well. He also shows a coning female plant in the conservatory of the Huntington Botanical Gardens, in California. Jungle Music states that it needs a frost-free environment and filtered light. Since the species grows in the understorey in the wild, filtered light rather than full sun is the logical choice; as the trunk can reach several metres, a large plant eventually needs a tall glasshouse.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

Outdoors it is only suited to humid tropical climates with no frost at all, in the shade of trees, in free-draining soil rich in organic matter. No outdoor planting has been reported from subtropical gardens, even in southern Florida or Hawaii, where the gardens that hold it do not say how it is grown.

Container cultivation

In temperate countries it is grown in a pot or a glasshouse bed, in a free-draining, neutral to acid compost, kept warm by night as well as by day and in humid air, with watering reduced but not stopped when temperatures fall. Its slender trunk and moderate leaf size make it one of the trunk-forming Zamia best suited to a large pot for many years.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

In short: held by several American gardens; no British or Australian record.

United States: Montgomery Botanical Center (Coral Gables, Florida) lists five accession numbers in its online catalogue, from 2014 to 2024 (queried on 25 October 2026); Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden (Coral Gables) lists it in its online Garden Explorer; the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens (San Marino, California), where Vannini (2019) photographed a coning female plant in the conservatory, declares it to BGCI, as do Naples Botanical Garden (Florida), San Diego Botanic Garden (Encinitas, California), the University of Hawaii at Hilo and the National Tropical Botanical Garden (Kalāheo, Hawaii) (queried on 25 October 2026).
United Kingdom: no record in BGCI or in the online catalogues of British gardens. Trebrown Nurseries, a British nursery, rates it USDA zone 10a, a commercial classification.
Australia: no record in BGCI or in the online catalogues of Australian gardens.

A BGCI declaration shows that a garden held the plant at some point, not that it is alive there today. Elsewhere, the species is declared by two Colombian gardens (Cartagena and Medellín) and by Prague Botanical Garden.

Propagation

The species is propagated from seed, after pollination of a female plant by a male plant coning at the same time; in cultivation, pollination is generally done by hand. No sowing protocol specific to Zamia obliqua has been published. For the Zamia of Panama, Taylor and colleagues (2012) note that seeds need a post-ripening period of a few weeks after the cone breaks up, and that, in an experiment at the University of Panama on other species, their germination rate fell over the year until it became negligible after one year: it is therefore best to sow fresh seed, cleaned of its fleshy coat while wearing gloves. Seeds are exempt from CITES under annotation #4, but they must come from legally cultivated plants.

Pests and diseases

No disease or pest specific to the species has been documented. In the wild in Panama, the main herbivore of cycads is the caterpillar of the butterfly Eumaeus godarti, which eats leaves and cones; according to Taylor and colleagues (2012), attacked plants generally recover quickly. In cultivation, Zamia are chiefly at risk from root and stem rot in cold, waterlogged compost, and from scale insects. Among these, Aulacaspis yasumatsui, the Asian cycad scale, which can kill a mature cycad within months, includes the genus Zamia among its host plants according to the EPPO Global Database, after Marler, Lindström and Watson (2021); no attack has been reported on Zamia obliqua itself.

Cold hardiness

Zamia obliqua is not hardy: it is a species of humid lowland tropical forest, and no cold tolerance data exist, either in the wild or in cultivation. The temperatures given by Cycadales.eu for its group (nights at about 22 °C, brief drops to about 15 °C) describe the conditions for healthy growth, not a survival limit. In the lowland evergreen forests of Panama where it grows, Taylor and colleagues (2012) give temperatures of 24 to 30 °C (75.2 to 86 °F).

Mediterranean and European experience

No outdoor planting has been reported in France or elsewhere in Europe, and no dated frost episode concerns the species. For readers in Mediterranean-type climates such as coastal California or southern Australia, as in the UK, it remains a plant for a heated glasshouse or a warm, humid interior.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

No cold record has been published. Even in southern California, the plant shown by Vannini (2019) grows under glass, in the Huntington conservatory. Trebrown Nurseries’ USDA zone 10a is a commercial classification, not a measured result; in the UK the plant needs heated glass all year.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity study specific to Zamia obliqua 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, according to pharmacological studies cited by The Gymnosperm Database, and the ASPCA cites cycasin and BMAA, a neurotoxic amino acid, for Zamia furfuracea, 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 traditional use specific to Zamia obliqua has been documented. The local name “maizito” is given by the Flora de Colombia without any explanation of its origin or mention of a use.

Frequently asked questions

Where does the name obliqua come from?

From the Latin obliquus, “oblique”. According to the Flora de Colombia, it refers to the oblique base of the leaflets; according to Haynes (2022), as quoted by The World List of Cycads, it rather refers to the oblique angle at which the leaflets are attached to the rachis. Braun, who named it, did not explain it.

How tall does Zamia obliqua grow?

Up to 5 m. The Flora de Colombia gives a trunk 0.5 to 5 m tall and only 5 to 12 cm across, with up to about twenty leaves. Plants from the Panama Canal area are said to be generally smaller.

How does it differ from Zamia pseudoparasitica?

By its way of life. Zamia obliqua is a terrestrial understorey plant with an aerial trunk, according to the Flora de Colombia and Taylor and colleagues (2012); no publication records it as an epiphyte. Zamia pseudoparasitica, with which it grows in the north of central Panama, is the only known epiphytic cycad, living on tree branches. The two are nevertheless close relatives according to Lindstrom and colleagues (2024).

How does it differ from Zamia manicata?

The difference is clear on adult plants. Zamia manicata has an underground stem, leaflets up to 35 cm long on a short stalk with a collar, and purple female cones; Zamia obliqua has an aerial trunk, stalkless leaflets 5 to 10 cm long and light brown cones. The two names were nevertheless confused for decades.

Does it grow in Costa Rica?

That is debated. The World List of Cycads records it in the province of Puntarenas, as does the revision by Acuña-Castillo (2010), but Lindström and colleagues (2013) think the old Costa Rican collection was a young Zamia fairchildiana, and Species+ lists only Colombia and Panama.

Is it endangered?

Not globally: the IUCN rates it Least Concern (LC, 2022). In Panama, however, its populations are scattered and often relict, and forest clearance long caused the species to be considered highly threatened there.

Can it be grown outdoors?

Only in a humid tropical climate without frost. Elsewhere it needs a warm, humid glasshouse or a heated room; no cold tolerance is known, and plants bought should come from cultivated seed.

Sources

Reference sites

The World List of Cycads (version 2026.08.15), Zamia obliqua: https://cycadlist.org/scientific_name/526 — author, publication, neotype (Seemann 1569, Cabo Corrientes, December 1847, BM, isoneotype K), range by country and province, IUCN status, etymology (Haynes 2022), homonym of Regel ex Ducos, Costa Rican collection of 2013. Checklist of the IUCN Cycad Specialist Group, reliable; consulted on 25 October 2026.
Monatsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin, 1875, scan made available by The World List of Cycads: https://cycadlist.org/storage/proto/Zamia_obliqua.pdf — Braun’s original description (page 376): German diagnosis, discovery by Wallis in 1873, cultivation at James Veitch’s. Primary source; page read from the image.
Flora de Colombia (Universidad Nacional de Colombia), treatment of Zamia obliqua: https://www.biovirtual.unal.edu.co/floradecolombia/es/description/625/ — D.W. Stevenson’s description (2001): measurements, neotype, homonym, chromosomes, habitat, elevation, conservation, local name, comparison with Zamia manicata and Zamia ulei. National flora; read with the treatment of Zamia manicata (description/621) and the key to the genus (description/613).
IntechOpen, Taylor et al. (2012), Biogeographic Insights in Central American Cycad Biology: https://doi.org/10.5772/32253 — range in Panama, forest types, temperatures, pollinators, sympatry, place in the Panama clade, question of one or several species, absence from Costa Rica, threats, seed viability. Open-access chapter of a scientific book; full text read.
Insecta Mundi, Tang, Skelley, Taylor B. and Salzman, Review of Pharaxonotha Reitter inhabiting cones of the cycad Zamia L. in Panama (2024): https://journals.flvc.org/mundi/article/view/135731 — Pharaxonotha panamensis and Notorhopalotria panamensis in the cones of Zamia obliqua, different beetle in the Chocó, cone-choice experiments. Peer-reviewed entomology journal; full text read on 25 October 2026.
Repositorio Kérwá (University of Costa Rica), Acuña-Castillo (2010), Revisión taxonómica y morfológica y distribución de Zamia (Zamiaceae) en Costa Rica: https://kerwa.ucr.ac.cr/handle/10669/84075 — Costa Rican collection (Bahía Chal, Mogos de Osa) kept as Zamia obliqua, loss of Braun’s holotype in Berlin, Panamanian populations. Open-access master’s thesis, not published in a journal; full text read.
The Cycad Society, Lindström et al. (2013) (PDF): https://www.cycad.org/documents/descriptions/Zamia/Zamia-nana.pdf — discussion of the Costa Rican collection attributed to Zamia obliqua. Peer-reviewed article (Phytotaxa); full text read.
PubMed Central, Lindstrom et al. (2024): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11560380/ — specimen from Darién, subclade with Zamia elegantissima and Zamia stevensonii, slender and often branched stem. Peer-reviewed article; full text read.
World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew), Zamia obliqua A.Braun, via GBIF: https://www.gbif.org/species/207874939 — accepted name and place of publication. Kew reference list underlying POWO; dataset of 4 June 2026, queried through the GBIF API on 25 October 2026.
Exotica Esoterica, Central American and Panamanian Cycads in Field and Greenhouse (Jay Vannini, 17 February 2019, updated 2026): https://www.exoticaesoterica.com/magazine/central-american-and-panamanian-cycads-in-field-and-greenhouse — size in Colombia (after Benavides et al. 2010), smaller plants near the Canal, pot culture, coning plant at the Huntington, doubt over Costa Rica. Article by a naturalist and collector; indicative value; read.
Cycadales.eu (Simon Lavaud), Comment cultiver les Zamia en climat tempéré (6 January 2023, updated 27 May 2023, in French): https://cycadales.eu/comment-cultiver-les-zamia-en-climat-tempere/ — Zamia obliqua in the group of lowland Zamia, availability and fairly easy cultivation, conditions advised for the group. Specialist nursery: advice from experience.
Jungle Music Palms and Cycads, Zamia: An Exotic Type of Cycad: https://www.junglemusic.net/Zamia/Zamia_An_Exotic_Type_Of_Cycad.html — leaflets of nursery plants, frost-free environment, filtered light. Californian nursery; commercial information.
Montgomery Botanical Center, online catalogue of living collections (BG-BASE): https://websites.rbge.org.uk/cgi-bin/nph-readbtree.pl/dataset=CYCADS/filename=n132_cyc/firstval=1?ETI=zamia%20obliqua* — five accessions (2014-2024). Catalogue kept by the garden; queried on 25 October 2026.
Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, Garden Explorer: https://fairchild.gardenexplorer.org/ — species listed in the online catalogue. Catalogue kept by the garden; consulted on 19 October 2026.
BGCI PlantSearch, Zamia obliqua: https://plantsearch.bgci.org/ — 10 declaring gardens, seven of them in the United States. Global database of botanical garden collections; a declaration does not prove that the plant is still alive; queried through its API on 25 October 2026.
Trebrown Nurseries, Zamia obliqua: https://www.trebrown.com/plant_info.php?species=Zamia+obliqua — USDA zone 10a. British nursery; commercial classification; consulted on 25 October 2026.
Species+ (UNEP-WCMC), Zamia obliqua: https://speciesplus.net/species#/taxon_concepts/23534/legal — CITES Appendix II (listing of the Zamiaceae) since 4 February 1977, annotation #4; Annex B in the European Union since 2017 (Annex A before); national measures in Panama (2023, 2025); Spanish names; range (Colombia, Panama). Official CITES and EU database; queried through its public API on 18 October 2026.
Commission Regulation (EU) 2026/1383: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L_202601383 — annexes to Regulation (EC) No 338/97 in force since 29 June 2026. Official text.
GBIF (API), Zamia obliqua: https://api.gbif.org/v1/species/5284082/iucnRedListCategory — current IUCN Red List category (LC). Reference data infrastructure; queried on 25 October 2026.
The Gymnosperm Database (University of Hamburg archive), Zamia: https://www-archiv.fdm.uni-hamburg.de/b-online/earle/za/za/index.htm — toxic glycosides (cycasin, macrozamin), from which methylazoxymethanol is derived, found in the genus by pharmacological studies. Old page (1999) of a serious specialist database; genus-level information.
EPPO Global Database, Aulacaspis yasumatsui, host plants: https://gd.eppo.int/taxon/AULSYA/hosts — the genus Zamia listed among the host plants, after Marler, Lindström and Watson (2021). Intergovernmental organisation, reliable.
ASPCA Animal Poison Control, Cardboard Cycad: https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/aspca-poison-control/toxic-and-non-toxic-plants/cardboard-cycad — toxicity of Zamia furfuracea to dogs, cats and horses (cycasin, BMAA), cited here at genus level. Veterinary poison centre, reliable.

Bibliography

Braun, A. (1875). [Appendix: diagnoses of three cycads discovered by G. Wallis in New Granada]. Monatsberichte der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin 1875: 376–377. [Original description of Zamia obliqua; page read in the scan made available by The World List of Cycads.]
Stevenson, D.W. (2001). Orden Cycadales. Flora de Colombia 21: 1–91. Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá. [Treatment of the species; online version read.]
Stevenson, D.W. & Sabato, S. (1986). Typification of names in Zamia L. and Aulacophyllum Regel (Zamiaceae). Taxon 35(1): 134–144. https://doi.org/10.2307/1221051 [Designation of the neotype, according to the Flora de Colombia; not consulted.]
Taylor B., A.S., Haynes, J.L., Stevenson, D.W., Holzman, G. & Mendieta, J. (2012). Biogeographic insights in Central American cycad biology. In: Stevens, L. (ed.), Global Advances in Biogeography, InTech, Rijeka: 73–98. https://doi.org/10.5772/32253 [Range, ecology, pollinators and phylogeny of the Zamia of Panama; full text read.]
Tang, W., Skelley, P.E., Taylor B., A.S. & Salzman, S. (2024). Review of Pharaxonotha Reitter (Coleoptera: Erotylidae: Pharaxonothinae) inhabiting cones of the cycad Zamia L. (Cycadales) in Panama, with descriptions of five new species. Insecta Mundi 1043: 1–40. [Cone beetles; full text read.]
Lindström, A.J., Calonje, M., Stevenson, D., Husby, C. & Taylor, A. (2013). Clarification of Zamia acuminata and a new Zamia species from Coclé Province, Panama. Phytotaxa 98(2): 27–42. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.98.2.1 [Discussion of the Costa Rican collection; full text read.]
Acuña-Castillo, R.H. (2010). Revisión taxonómica y morfológica y distribución de Zamia (Zamiaceae) en Costa Rica. Master’s thesis, Universidad de Costa Rica, San José. hdl:10669/84075 [Unpublished revision; full text read.]
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 [Full text read on PubMed Central.]
Calonje, M., Meerow, A.W., Griffith, M.P., Salas-Leiva, D., Vovides, A.P., Coiro, M. & Francisco-Ortega, J. (2019). A time-calibrated species tree phylogeny of the New World cycad genus Zamia L. (Zamiaceae, Cycadales). International Journal of Plant Sciences 180(4): 286–314. [Cited after Lindstrom et al. 2024; not consulted directly.]
Gómez-Lopera, M. & López-Gallego, C. (2017). Estimación de heredabilidad y correlaciones genéticas en caracteres morfológicos y fisiológicos para una población de Zamia obliqua A.Br. (Zamiaceae: Cycadales). Actualidades Biológicas 36(101): 137–148. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.acbi.329081 [Abstract read on Crossref.]
López-Gallego, C. (2022). Zamia obliqua. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T42171A69841044. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-1.RLTS.T42171A69841044.en [Current assessment, LC, dated 19 June 2020; reference checked on Crossref, category on GBIF; the Red List page could not be consulted.]
Stevenson, D.W. (2010). Zamia obliqua. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2010: e.T42171A10673229. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2010-3.RLTS.T42171A10673229.en [Earlier assessment; reference checked on Crossref, category not checked.]
Haynes, J.L. (2022). Etymological compendium of cycad names. Phytotaxa 550(1): 1–31. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.550.1.1 [Etymology given by The World List of Cycads; not consulted directly.]
Vannini, J. (2019). Central American and Panamanian cycads in field and greenhouse. Exotica Esoterica, 17 February 2019 (updated 2026). [Naturalist’s article; read.]
Lavaud, S. (2023). Comment cultiver les Zamia en climat tempéré. Cycadales.eu. [Growing advice for groups of species; read directly.]
Marler, T.E., Lindström, A.J. & Watson, G.W. (2021). Aulacaspis yasumatsui delivers a blow to international cycad horticulture. Horticulturae 7(6): 147. https://doi.org/10.3390/horticulturae7060147 [Host plants cited after EPPO; full text not consulted.]
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.]