Cycas schumanniana | |
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Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Plantae |
Clade: | Tracheophytes |
Division: | Cycadophyta |
Class: | Cycadopsida |
Order: | Cycadales |
Family: | Cycadaceae |
Genus: | Cycas |
Species: | C. schumanniana |
Binomial name | |
Cycas schumanniana Lauterb. | |
Cycas schumanniana is a species of cycad endemic to New Guinea.
It is found in northern New Guinea along the foothills of the Bismarck Range, where it is found in the valleys of the Markham River, Ramu River, and Bulolo River watersheds as far as Wau, Papua New Guinea. [1]
Sago is a starch extracted from the spongy centre, or pith, of various tropical palm stems, especially those of Metroxylon sagu. It is a major staple food for the lowland peoples of New Guinea and the Moluccas, where it is called saksak, rabia and sagu. The largest supply of sago comes from Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and Malaysia. Large quantities of sago are sent to Europe and North America for cooking purposes. It is traditionally cooked and eaten in various forms, such as rolled into balls, mixed with boiling water to form a glue-like paste (papeda), or as a pancake. Sago is often produced commercially in the form of "pearls". Sago pearls can be boiled with water or milk and sugar to make a sweet sago pudding. Sago pearls are similar in appearance to the pearled starches of other origin, e.g. cassava starch (tapioca) and potato starch, and they may be used interchangeably in some dishes.
Cycads are seed plants with a very long fossil history that were formerly more abundant and more diverse than they are today. They typically have a stout and woody (ligneous) trunk with a crown of large, hard and stiff, evergreen leaves. They usually have pinnate leaves. The species are dioecious, therefore the individual plants of a species are either male or 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 their superficial resemblance, they are sometimes mistaken for palms or ferns, but they are not closely related to either group.
Cycadales is an order of seed plants that includes all the extant cycads. These plants typically have a stout and woody (ligneous) trunk with a crown of large evergreen leaves. They usually have pinnate leaves. The individual plants are either all male or all female (dioecious). 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.
Cycas is a genus of plants belonging to a very ancient lineage, the Cycadophyta, which are not closely related to palms, ferns, trees or any other modern group of plants. They are evergreen perennials which achieved their maximum diversity in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, when they were distributed almost worldwide. At the end of the Cretaceous, when the non-avian dinosaurs became extinct, so did most of the cycas in the Northern Hemisphere.
The Ramu River is a major river in northern Papua New Guinea. The headwaters of the river are formed in the Kratke Range from where it then travels about 640 km (398 mi) northwest to the Bismarck Sea.
Belidae is a family of weevils, called belids or primitive weevils because they have straight antennae, unlike the "true weevils" or Curculionidae which have elbowed antennae. They are sometimes known as "cycad weevils", but this properly refers to a few species from the genera Parallocorynus and Rhopalotria.
Cycas apoa is a species of cycad in the genus Cycas, native to northern New Guinea. It occurs in the Sepik River basin, in wet lowland forest in modestly seasonally flooded areas.
Fossil Cycad National Monument was a national monument in the U.S. state of South Dakota beginning in 1922. The site contained hundreds of fossil cycads, one of the world's greatest concentrations. Because vandals stole or destroyed all of the visible fossils, it was withdrawn as a national monument in 1957. It is located in northwestern Fall River County, on U.S. Route 18, northeast of the city of Edgemont.
Cycas circinalis, also known as the queen sago, is a species of cycad known in the wild only from southern India. Cycas circinalis is the only gymnosperm species found among native Sri Lankan flora.
Lepidozamia peroffskyana is a palm-like cycad in the family Zamiaceae. It is endemic to eastern Australia. The species is named after Count Peroffsky (1794-1857), benefactor of the St. Petersburg Botanical Garden.
Metroxylon sagu, the true sago palm, is a species of palm in the genus Metroxylon, native to tropical southeastern Asia, namely Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia and possibly also the Philippines. It is also naturalised in Thailand, in the Indonesian islands of Java, Kalimantan, Sumatra, and in the Solomon Islands.
The Bulaka River languages are a pair of closely related Papuan languages, Yelmek and Maklew, on the Bulaka River in Indonesian West Papua. They are ethnically Yab (Jab); their speech is Yabga (Jabga).
Corypha utan, the cabbage palm, buri palm or gebang palm, is a species of palm. It is distributed from the Assam region of India through Indochina, Malaysia, and Indonesia to the Philippines and New Guinea, and south to Australia's Cape York Peninsula.
Boganiidae is a family of beetles, in the suborder Polyphaga. Members of the family are found in southern Africa, Australia and New Caledonia. Adults and larvae are pollenivorous, feeding on the pollen of cycads and Myrtaceae, Meliaceae, Cunoniaceae and Elaeocarpaceae angiosperms. Metacucujus and Paracucujus act as pollinators for cycads Encephalartos and Macrozamia respectively. This association with cycads goes back to at least the Mid-Cretaceous, with an extinct form being found with preserved cycad pollen in 99 million year old Burmese amber.
The Durban Botanic Gardens is situated in the city of Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It is Durban's oldest public institution and Africa's oldest surviving botanical gardens. The gardens cover an area of 15 hectares in a subtropical climate.
Cycas rumphii, commonly known as queen sago or the queen sago palm, is a dioecious gymnosperm, a species of cycad in the genus Cycas native to Indonesia, New Guinea and Christmas Island. Although palm-like in appearance, it is not a palm.
The Orya–Tor languages are a family of just over a dozen Papuan languages spoken in Western New Guinea, Indonesia.
The Lowveld National Botanical Garden, one of the nine National Botanical Gardens of South Africa is located just outside Mbombela, Mpumalanga at the confluence of the Crocodile River and Nels River, which are separated by an extensive promontory. A lookout point at the far end of the garden, reached through a rainforest trail allows views of the river in the deep gorge. The N4 road runs through the northern portion of the park.
Encephalartos natalensis, the Natal cycad or giant cycad, is a species of cycad that is endemic to the Qumbu and Tabankulu areas of the northern part of the Eastern Cape, and through most of KwaZulu-Natal. The number of mature individuals of this species is declining and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as being "near threatened".
Cycas papuana is a species of cycad endemic to Papua New Guinea. It is found in Western Province, including the floodplains of the Fly River and near Daru to the west, and also extending to the Bensbach River.