ABSTRACT
This chapter provides information on the uses, folk medicine, chemistry, germplasm, distribution, ecology, cultivation, harvesting, yields, energy, and biotic factors of Cica. Speaking of Cycads in general, R. G. Egolf says Cycad nuts are rather large, many of them an inch across. They are fat and rounded, full of starch, and mostly covered by a brilliant orange or reddish outer coat. They look as if they are meant to be good to eat. The poisonous substance in Cycads is soluble in water. Fatalities are attributed to eating improperly prepared nuts. Many of Captain's Cook's voyagers vomited following the ingestion of cycad nuts. Symptoms of poisoning include headache, violent retching, vertigo, swelling of the stomach and legs, depression, stupor, euphoria, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, tenesmus, muscle paralysis, and rheumatism. A cycas is said to produce annually ca. 550 seeds, yielding about as much starch as an irreplaceable stem approximately 1 m long.
