Cycad conservation in action

The MBC has been actively working in cycad conservation. Below is the shade house where they grow seedings from endangered species into plants for the MBC and for gardens around the world.

Vickie is the greenhouse horticulturalist and Patrick is the director, and they are standing in front of seedlings of Zamia prasina, which is only found in a sinkhole in Belize. The plant is highly endangered.

When the genetics of the MBC plants are compared to the wild populations, the diversity of the MBC plants successfully represents the wild genetic diversity. A very promising sign that their conservation work is effective!

Another way to conserve the cycads is to preserve their pollen. Below is a pollen cone of Microcycas calocoma. It's restricted to a few plants on Cuba today. To release the pollen, the cones are tapped with the mallet.

The Microcycas pollen is first stored in the freezer. The frozen pollen is sent to other gardens when they have a female cone that requires pollen - the result is seeds for growing into a new generation of plants.

These are what the Microcycas plants look like. These are some of the oldest plants known outside of Cuba.

Below is the endangered species Zamia lucayana. It's from the Bahamas, and the plants grow along the beach so they have been planted in a beach setting!

Lastly is Cycas micronesica from Guam. In one part of Guam, there were 686 plants in 2004, which then dropped to 87 plants in 2007. So the work of MBC is highly critical to the long-term survival of this species.

There are seeds on this Cycas micronesica plant at the MBC. The seeds will be used to raise more plants in the hope of increasing the number of living plants of this endangered species.