![[Pasted image 20230727202342.jpg]] This is a cycad from the Huntington Gardens in Pasadena, CA. I don't remember the exact species, but I believe it is native to Africa. Cycads reproduce via a cone-like structure called a *strobilus*, and their fronds grow from the top center of the plant, forming orange tendrils that unfurl from a spiral in a way that resembles a fern. The fronds fall off as the cycad ages, leaving scars arranged in a helix around the trunk. Cycads contain several neurotoxins, although there is a tradition of making sago (a starchy flour) from cycad bark in some places, using some special techniques to remove the toxins. Cycads tend to look like palm trees, although the two groups are not closely related. Someone once told me that one way to tell the difference between cycads and palms is that cycads have helical patterns and palms have circles around the trunk, but this is not true; for example, Canary Island date palms sport a very prominent helical trunk pattern. In my experience, the most reliable way to tell the difference is to look for fruit (dates, coconuts, etc); cycads do not produce fruit. The pattern of leaf growth is another difference, but one is usually not able to see the center of leaf growth from below.