page_title: Encephalartos woodii
section_title: Taxonomy
hierarchical_section_title: Encephalartos woodii / Taxonomy
caption_attribution_description: English: Part of a leaf of a medium sized Encephalartos woodii growing in a shady position at the Durban Botanic Gardens, South Africa
context_page_description: Encephalartos woodii, Wood's cycad, is a rare cycad in the genus Encephalartos, and is endemic to the oNgoye Forest of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is one of the rarest plants in the world, being extinct in the wild with all specimens being clones of the type. The specific and common name both honour John Medley Wood, curator of the Durban Botanic Garden and director of the Natal Government Herbarium of South Africa, who discovered the plant in 1895.
context_section_description: Encephalartos woodii was first described by Wood as a variety of E. altensteinii (as E. altensteinii var. bispinna), and raised to the rank of species in 1908 by the English horticulturalist Henry Sander from studying a specimen in his collection, which was apparently one of the basal offsets taken from the original clump. It has been considered that Encephalartos woodii is most closely related to E. natalensis. Some authorities consider E. woodii to not be a true species but rather a mutant E. natalensis or a relic of some other species. Yet others consider this plant to be a natural hybrid between E. natalensis and E. ferox.  To determine the relationship between E. natalensis and E. woodii, the RAPD technique was used to generate genetic fingerprints and data analysed using distance methods. Based on RAPD fingerprints, the intraspecific genetic variation among different E. natalensis plants is similar to the interspecific variation between E. natalensis and E. woodii, which confirms the close relationship between E. natalensis and E. woodii.
caption: Portion of a leaf showing leaflets
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