- Title
- Cycads plundered
- Creator
- South African digest
- Subject
- Cycads -- South Africa -- Pictorial works
- Date Issued
- 1979-06-08
- Date
- 1979-06-08
- Type
- text
- Type
- clippings
- Type
- ephemera
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/73064
- Identifier
- vital:30148
- Description
- Newspaper article: "Cycads, South Africa's precious living fossils, are being stolen and sold to smart-set gardeners in South Africa, Japan and the United States reports The Daily News. Plants of one rare species, Encephelatus Woodii, have been offered for sale in the United States for R5 000. Botanists say cycads sell for R26 a centimeter overseas, so that a waist-high plant fetches about R2 500. Cycads are very slow-growing. Plants germinated 12 years ago at the Natal Botanical Gardens have a stem the size of a small football. Hence plants of a reasonable size may be hundreds of years old, while the rootstock from which the plants grow may be thousands of years old. There are 28 species in South Africa and seven occur in Natal. They are known in Afrikaans as Broodboom (bread tree) because Hottentots were said to make bread from the pith, after it had been left to rot for two months. A spokesman for the Natal Parks Board said the authorities could not prevent exploitation. Convictions for removing protected plants were difficult to obtain as it was almost impossible to prove where the plants came from unless the culprits were caught red-handed. When found to be in illegal possession, plants ere confiscated and planted out.Miss Jane Baxter, Natal Parks Board public relations officer, dwarfed by a giant cycad, Encephelatus Natalensis. This fine plant is thought to be between 150 and 200 years old. The Daily News. S. A. Digest. 8 June 1979."
- Format
- 1 page
- Format
- jpg
- Language
- English
- Relation
- South African digest
- Rights
- © South African digest
- Rights
- This item is made accessible via Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) - see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
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