page_title: Cycadales
section_title: History of human use
hierarchical_section_title: Cycadales / History of human use
caption_attribution_description: Cycas revoluta- seeds
context_page_description: Cycadales is an order of seed plants that includes all the extant cycads. These plants typically have a stout and woody trunk with a crown of large evergreen leaves. They usually have pinnate leaves. The individual plants are either all male or all female. Cycads vary in size from having trunks only a few centimeters to several meters tall. They typically grow very slowly and live very long, with some specimens known to be as much as 1,000 years old. Because of the superficial resemblance, they are sometimes confused with and mistaken for palms or ferns, but are only distantly related to either.
  Cycadales are found across much of the subtropical and tropical parts of the world. They are found in South and Central America, Mexico, the Antilles, southeastern United States, Australia, Melanesia, Micronesia, Japan, China, Southeast Asia, India, Sri Lanka, Madagascar, and southern and tropical Africa, where at least 65 species occur. Some can survive in harsh semidesert climates, others in wet rain forest conditions, and some in both. Some can grow in sand or even on rock, some in oxygen-poor, swampy, bog-like soils rich in organic material, and some in both.
context_section_description: Starch-rich cycad seeds were an important part of the diet of Aboriginal people in some regions of Australia. Prior to eating them, Aboriginal people used techniques such as roasting the seeds and then soaking the kernels for many days to wash out the poison.
  Modern knowledge about cycads began in the 9th century with the recording by two Arab naturalists that the genus Cycas was used as a source of flour in India. Later, in the 16th century, Antonio Pigafetta, Fernão Lopes de Castanheda and Francis Drake found Cycas plants in the Moluccas, where the seeds were eaten. The first report of cycads in the New World was by Giovanni Lerio in his 1576 trip to Brazil, where he observed a plant named ayrius by the indigenous people; this species is now classified in the genus Zamia.
  In January 1697, Dutch sailors landed on the banks of the Swan River in Western Australia, part of the crew of the Nyptang, one of the ships in an expedition led by the Dutch navigator Willem de Vlamingh. They noticed palm-like plants with cones bearing large brightly coloured seeds. These were enticing and appeared to be a delicious change to a monotonous seafaring diet. Some of the sailors eagerly sampled the seeds and later wrote about the experience:
  "… I ate five or six [seeds] and drank some of the water from one of the aforesaid holes, but after an interval of about three hours I and five more of the others who had also eaten the said fruit began to vomit so violently that there was hardly any distinction between death and us".
  In August 1770, some British sailors passed the time on the banks of the Endeavour River in northern Queensland. They were part of the crew of the Endeavour voyage of James Cook and their ship has been badly damaged on a coral reef. The sailors noticed many palm-like plants growing nearby, some of which had large brownish seeds described as 'nuts about the size of a large chestnut and rounder' Thinking that the seeds were edible, some sailors tried them. A few hours later, these men suffered from painful stomach cramps and explosive vomiting. The ship’s captain later wrote in his journal:
  "… those who made the experiment paid dear for their knowledge of the contrary, for they [the seeds] operated as an emetic and cathartic with great violence…"
  Pigs were taken on board the Endeavour in Tahiti as a source of fresh meat and, when they were fed cycad seeds, several of them died.
  Throughout the 18th-19th centuries, discoveries of several species were reported by numerous naturalist researchers and discoverers traveling throughout the world. One of the most notable researchers of cycads was American botanist C.J. Chamberlain whose work is noteworthy for the quantity of data and the novelty of his approach to studying cycads. His 15 years of travel throughout Africa, the Americas and Australia to observe cycads in their natural habitat resulted in his 1919 publication of The Living Cycads which remains current in its synthesis of taxonomy, morphology and reproductive biology of cycads, most of which was obtained from his original research. His 1940s monograph on the Cycadales, was never published.
caption: These are Cycas revoluta seeds. They are very toxic.
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