Cycas rumphii (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Cycas rumphii Miq.

Family: Cycadaceae

Cycas circinalis L.

• Indonesia: pakis haji, pakis raja
• Malaysia: paku laut, paku gajah, bogak
• Philippines: pitogo (Tagalog), bait (Sulu), sauang (Iloko)
• Burma: mong-tain
• Thailand: prong-tha-le (peninsular), maphrao-sida (Prachuap Khiri Khan), prong (central)
• Vietnam: thiên túê.

India, Sri Lanka, South-East Asia, Australia, Micronesia, wild and cultivated.

The seeds are edible, prepared as flour. Fresh seeds are poisonous. The youngest leaves are eaten as vegetable. A kind of sago is prepared from the trunk. A poultice of the seeds and bark is used to cure sores and skin complaints. The plant is also important as an ornamental.

Dioecious palm-like tree, up to 6 m tall, sometimes branched. Leaves in a dense terminal whorl, pinnate, up to 2.5 m long and with 50-150 pairs of leaflets. Flowers united in a cone, female cone terminal with numerous carpophylls, up to 50 cm long. Seeds ovoid-ellipsoid, 3-6 cm × 2.5-5 cm, orange. Often along the sea coast and in forests at low altitudes.

3, 8, 10, 29, 36, 59, 81.