Both have extensive outdoor plantings of cycads from around the world. If you visit Kew Gardens outside London, England, don't miss the rare Encephalartos woodii specimen, a species which is totally extinct in the wild. Most plants lack such an arrangement, and must rely on external sources of fertilizer, such as animal dung. This nitrogen-fixing ability allows the cycad to grow in very poor soil. Male and female cones are borne on separate plants, and pollination is via insects or the wind, depending on species.
Seeds range in size from no bigger than a pea in some cycads to as big as a goose egg in others.
The seeds are often harvested by birds, small mammals, and baboons, who frequently eat the fleshy seed coat and then drop the hard seeds themselves some distance away from the mother plant. This is how the cycads expand their range and avoid overcrowding. Cycads and man Aside from their value as landscape plants, cycad leaves are popular today for funeral wreaths and Palm Sunday arrangements because they stay green and fresh-looking long after they have been cut from the plant. Native peoples have made foodstuffs from cycads for centuries, but Western man has learned some hard lessons when trying to exploit cycads for nutrition while ignoring traditional methods of preparation. Unable to walk, they would then starve to death.