Today we continue our series, Caring for Mother Nature, by my friend, the author and naturalist, Peggy Sias Lantz. (Click her name to go to her website.) This time, we find out about her favorite native plant: coontie.
My husband, Hoyt, and I happen to like it, too, and have some planted in our yard. Back in 2008, we removed part of our lawn and planted native plants found in Florida, many of which are drought resistant, including coontie. One benefit was saving water!
Note: Just a reminder that these articles were first published in the newsletter of Peggy’s church. She’s graciously allowed me to republish them here.
My Favorite Native Plant
by Peggy Lantz
It has shiny, evergreen, fernlike leaves. It’ll grow in sun or shade. It’ll survive drought and hurricanes. It’ll take heat or cold. Even salt spray. It grows to about three feet high and three feet across. It does not flower. It has beautiful red-orange seeds in a huge pod. It takes two plants, one male plant and one female plant, to make the seed pod. The pollen from the male plant is blown by the wind to the female plant. It can live over 100 years.
It’s called coontie. The botanical name is Zamia integrifolia. (Botanists quibble a lot. They have changed its species name several times, Z. pumila, Z. floridana and others.) Coontie is a cycad, an ancient group of plants that have existed since the time of the dinosaurs. You may have a different cycad growing in your yard, called sago palm. Coontie is prettier, and makes a beautiful dooryard plant.
Coontie is the host plant for the caterpillar of the atala butterfly. I have lots of coonties in my yard and woods, but unfortunately, my place is too far north for the butterfly, which remains a south Florida beauty.
Can you eat coontie?
Coontie is not an edible plant. All parts of it are toxic. But when the Seminoles were driven into the Everglades by the Federal army, they found a way to rid it of its toxicity and make bread from the resulting flour. The flour is made from the sweet potato-like root, which the Seminoles cut up, soaked in water, pounded to release the fibers, washed, fermented, soaked again, drained, let dry, and then sifted out the remaining powder. They had a specially prepared log, called the coontie log, with gouged-out bowls in it to move the roots from one bowl to the other as they prepared it.
Later, when entrepreneurs in Miami learned how to make coontie bread for sale, they nearly eradicated the plant, which nearly eradicated the atala butterfly, as well.
How, oh how, does coontie grow?
The most unfortunate thing about the coontie plant is that it grows so-o-o slowly. The seed pod takes two years to develop. When a seed sprouts, it sends up one tiny leaf with maybe two leaflets at the end. The next year, maybe two leaves with four tiny leaflets. It takes a long time to grow a nice coontie from seed, which is why a plant costs so much in the garden store. And of course you need at least two of them if you want the big seed pods.
Peggy’s coonties
My mature coonties may be 75 years old. My grandmother may have planted them. I also have lots of young ones, because they propagate themselves now, which I will not sell, but might give away if you have something to trade that I can’t refuse. And I will have lots of seeds soon, because the pods are about to pop. I’ll leave a basket of them in Fellowship Hall as soon as they’re ready, and you can take a few of them to plant at your house. I gave some to a friend recently, and he just emailed me a note that said he has two coontie sprouts!
I think it’s a beautiful plant. Planting a coontie seed is an affirmation of your faith in the future.
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Thanks for reading!
Your writer on the wing,
Charlene
Janne Lane
I loved reading about the coontie plant. I would have loved to have planted some in my yard at Lakeview since it sounds like it is pretty and because it so resilient makes it intriguing. However, I’ll pass the information on to my daughter who’s always interested in plants for her yard.
Charlene
Hoyt and I sure love our coontie plants. They are hardy and beautiful.