Walking down the street a while ago I almost fell over my feet when I saw this cycad flower right there beside the footpath – iPhone to the rescue to capture this amazingly furry relic of the past.
A good 18 inches, maybe 2 feet across, this extraordinary prehistoric flower is full of surprises.
Furry flowers? Really, look:
This is a sort of Wordless Wednesday cum Yellow, for Ailsa’s Travel Theme post.
Another Paradise 
Pingback: the Two Golden Faces of Las Vegas | baD.I.N.K.adink
an extraordinary creature, right on the footpath! does it feel soft and furry to touch? I wonder what all the different parts are? Great find M 🙂
I didn’t like to touch it, Christine, in case I damaged something! I was totally awestruck – I’ve never seen one like this, and there it was, part of an urban streetscape!
awesome!
This is extraordinary. I have never seen a pic of a cycad flower. Thank you.
Trish, I’d never seen one like this either – there are dozens of different varieties, shapes and sizes, of course 🙂
2 feet across, Wow! Nice shot!
Yes, Amy, it was a Wow! Easily two feet – certainly the whole thing was bigger than my new computer screen! ::)
Wow, I’ve seen big cycads… in the NT, and our TA neighbor has one in her hard, but never seen the centre like this. Amazing… you’d quite expect to see a dinosaur ambling along 🙂
Well yes, that’s what I thought! But I was devastated to learn just now that the modern cycad species are just that – nature’s recreation of a species that was wiped out with the dinosaurs – only to reappear about 10 million years ago 😦
Stranger than fiction! 🙂 I meant to ask you earlier if you were still maintaining this blog, Meredith, then I came upon it when I was looking for something else. Happenstance! (or happy stance 🙂 )
Oh Jo – yes, I do plan to – it’s just that life (and a succession of internet fiascoes) has been interfering. Hopefully I’ll be up and posting regularly before the summer’s over! Thank you for keeping in touch 🙂
Looks more fauna than flora. 🙂
That’s a preeety apt assessment, Ron! 🙂
Oh my goodness.
I’ve always loved them – well, the idea of them really, since seeing them on Fraser Island when R and I first came back to Oz in the 80s. Now I hear these aren’t Gondawana relics but a totally new morph only 10 million years old! 🙂
Not so old then. 😉 I never saw them when we were there…bummer.
When you call it a “relic” does that mean they aren’t around much anymore? Did they use to be bountiful or have they always been rare? I do so want to touch it.
Well, all my life I accepted that cycads are a relic of the Jurassic. Fossil records from all parts of the world indicated that cycads of all description were the dominant plant species at that time, earning the sobriquet “age of the cycad” to to hand in hand with the dinosaurs which ruled the animal kingdom. HOWEVER, I’ve just learned that in 2011 a botanist at Sydney’s Botanical Gardens published proof that the cycads we have now are new – 10 million years old only – and unrelated to those of the Jurassic. Now, this is very interesting – nature has recreated a model that was so successful. Shame. It appears climate change and people taking over habitat are killing them out faster than they can adapt … Aren’t they the most touchable looking flowers? 🙂
They really are very cool looking. Thanks for the details on these. It really is pretty interesting.
I thought so – quite fascinating, and totally romantic, in my eyes! 🙂