Zamia gentryi
Zamia gentryi is a species of plant in the family Zamiaceae. It is endemic to Ecuador. It is threatened by habitat loss. It is found in two locations in Carchi Province and Esmeraldas Province, Ecuador, which are located near Alto Tambo, as well as between Lita and San Lorenzo.
Etymology
The species epithet gentryi refers to Alwyn H. Gentry, who helped collect the type specimen.Description
Zamia gentryi may be either terrestrial with a stem lying on top of the ground, or epiphytic. The stem is or more long with a diameter of in the wild, and up to on plants in cultivation. There are five to nine compound leaves on the apex of the stem in the wild, and up to 13 leaves on plants under cultivation.Cataphylls are fleshy, triangular and up long. The leaves are erect, or arching away from the vertical, long with a long petiole. They emerge bright reddish-green and turn pale yellow-green as they mature. The petiole is covered with spines up to long. The leaflets are up to long and wide, narrowly ovate, with a sharp point at the apex and a smooth margin. The parallel leaf veins are sunken into the surface. The leaves have been described as "plicate" by some authors. Plicate leaves are otherwise found in Zamia only in members of the Zamia skinneri species complex and Z. dressleri in Panama, and in Z. wallisii in Colombia and Z. roezlii in Colombia and Ecuador.
Like all cycads, Zamia gentryi is dioecious, with individual plants being either male or female. There are one to seven male strobili on a plant, erect at the end of a peduncle up to long which curves to horizontal before returning to vertical to hold the strobilus upright. The cones are flattened-cylindrical, up to long and in diameter, and wine-red. There is only one female strobilus on a plant. They are barrel-shaped, up to tall and in diameter, red-brown in color. The seeds are ob-ovoid, long, and in diameter. The sarcotesta is pink to reddish at maturity.