An artist’s impression

As E.woodii’s illustrator, Lucy Smith has spent a long time looking closely at the cycad and has got to know it rather well.



She reveals hidden details of E.woodii, from the spiralling leaves to the diamond patterns in the trunk, saying, “The leaves come out of the centre of the cycad in a spiralling arrangement. Once the leaves have died off they leave their petiole bases behind and then these form a pattern.



These eventually become the diamond shapes that we see on the lower part of the trunk. Each diamond on that trunk represents an old leaf. You could count every single diamond on that trunk and you would know how many leaves it’s produced in its life.



Those leaf bases create Fibonacci spirals. On the trunk, there’s a spiral going from left to right – a spiral going downwards and a spiral going upwards. And where they intersect, you get the diamonds. It’s not until the leaves fall off that the pattern is revealed.”



Another notable aspect of the plant is, she says, that “This cycad does something strange in that it tilts away from you, and that allows us to see a few more of the leaves on the opposite side.”



For Lucy, whose final illustration will unusually include the architecture of the Temperate House in the background, E.woodii and the iconic glasshouse are firmly interlinked. By including both subjects in her piece, she hopes to “tell two stories: the story of this plant and the story of its cultivation and conservation.”