Coontie (Zamia integrifolia)

Also known as: Florida arrowroot

Quick Facts

• Type: shrub
• Size: 2-3 ft tall, 3-5 ft wide
• Sun: part
• Water: low
• Soil: Well-drained sand; tolerates poor soils
• USDA zones: 8-11

A feathery native cycad – and the host plant for the dazzling blue atala butterfly.

Florida's only native cycad; plant it and the atala butterflies may find you within a season or two.

In the Landscape

A slow, elegant evergreen for foundation plantings, borders, shady gardens, and containers. Plant it in masses as a low groundcover or use it as a textural accent among flowering natives.

Care & Propagation

Plant in spring in well-drained sandy soil in sun to part shade, and water until established. After that it is remarkably tough and drought tolerant, needing almost no care beyond removing old dead fronds. Give it room, because it dislikes being moved once the deep taproot settles in.

Grows very slowly from seed; remove the fleshy orange coating from ripe seeds before sowing, and be patient since germination takes months. Established plants can also be divided by separating offsets from the underground stem. Never dig plants from the wild, which is illegal.

Wildlife Value

Coontie is the only host plant for the dazzling blue atala butterfly; its caterpillars feed exclusively on coontie leaves. Planting coontie in mass plantings has helped the once-nearly-extinct atala rebound in South Florida.

🌱 Fun fact: Coontie is Florida's only native cycad, a living fossil related to plants that fed dinosaurs. In the 1800s and early 1900s it was nearly harvested out of existence when factories processed tons of its starchy underground stems into flour every day.

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🌴 In Florida

Florida's only native cycad; plant it and the atala butterflies may find you within a season or two.

🌿 Keep exploring

More Florida natives worth meeting:

• Adam's Needle (Yucca filamentosa)
• Allegheny chinquapin (Castanea pumila)
• American Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana)