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Wood's Cycad

Conifers and Other Gymnosperms

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Wood's cycad, Encephalartos woodii, is a cycad native to the Ngoye Forest of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, known from only a single wild clump of stems, all part of one male plant, discovered in 1895 and since removed to cultivation; no female plant has ever been found, and repeated searches of its native habitat have failed to locate another individual. Because it cannot reproduce sexually without a female, every cultivated Wood's cycad in botanical gardens worldwide today is a genetically identical clone propagated from that original plant, making it extinct in the wild despite surviving in cultivation.

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