The land before flowers
Phone calls steadily stream into Descanso Gardens; lots of people wish to drop off plants they no longer want or can care for. Most of the florae aren’t the right fit for the botanical garden. But one rare day in December 2014, a man called with an offer Descanso couldn’t refuse; a collection of cycads, ten years in the making.
Cycads are ancient plants whose origins reach back in time, pre-dating flowers, to an era when dinosaurs walked the Earth. In fact, cycads have survived 200 million years of changing circumstances, prevailing under wildly different climatic and geologic conditions. They grow very slowly, which makes for their long life span. When a climatic emergency hits, a plant embryo can go dormant for a long time, then “wake up” once the danger has passed. Cycads have minimal requirements for thriving; they don’t use a lot of water, and compost makes them happy.
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Address Descanso Gardens, 1418 Descanso Drive, La Cañada Flintridge, CA 91011, +1 818.949.4200, www.descansogardens.org | Getting there Free on-site lot | Hours Daily 9am–5pm; $10 general admission| Tip Devour what’s thought to be some of the best Mexican food in Los Angeles at nearby La Cabañita (3445 North Verdugo Road, Glendale, CA 91208). The salsa is so good it’s drinkable.
Most plants have male and female parts on them – but not the cycads. They reproduce by their cones. Male and female cones are quite different by size, shape, and color. Sporophylls, woody modified leaves on the cones, bear the sexual parts. The male cone produces blobs of pollen covered with hairs that wiggle, each the size of a pinpoint – thus visible to the naked eye – large for a plant. The female cone has ovules, which, when fertilized, develop into seeds.
That fateful call in 2014 led to an infusion of cycads at Descanso. About 170 plants and 66 species are thoughtfully planted by native region – Africa, Asia, Madagascar, Australia, and Mexico – in a garden called the Ancient Forest. At first glance, the cycad might appear to be a fern or palm, but they are related to neither. Some featured in the gardens no longer exist in the wild; humans, the cycad’s biggest threat, are recklessly harvesting them. Descanso is doing its part to allow the otherwise hearty plant to do what it does best: endure.
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