Wood's Cycad

The loneliest plant in the world, the last male of its species

In the Durban Botanic Gardens stands a cycad that is, botanically speaking, the loneliest plant in the world. Encephalartos woodii is known from only one wild individual — a single male collected near Empangeni in 1895 — and from clones propagated from it. No female has ever been found. The species is functionally extinct in the wild.

The Durban specimen is a clone of the original, planted in the gardens many decades ago. It is small, unremarkable in appearance, and labelled discreetly. Find it in the Cycad Collection — staff at the entrance can point the way. Worth seeking out for the story alone.

things to do sight
A story
John Medley Wood collected the original Encephalartos woodii in 1895 from the Ngoye Forest, near Empangeni. No other plant of the species has ever been found in the wild. Every E. woodii alive today is a clone of that one male — and without a female, the species cannot reproduce sexually. The original lives on at Kew. The clone in Durban is, in its quiet way, one of the world's loneliest organisms.

Other places in Things to Do