The Cult of the Cycad
He is a man on a mission, he says, determined to save wild cycads by selling legal seeds – seeds from artificially propagated plants — cheaply, thus taking the financial incentive out of digging up the plants and smuggling them. Meanwhile his own half-acre backyard collection has taken a backseat.
Not so for Bart Schutzman, who has amassed such an extensive collection of cycads on his 20-acre property outside of Gainesville, Florida, that he can’t leave home for longer than two days. “It’s because of the watering schedule,” he says. “And the dogs.” Schutzman, editor of the newsletter published by the Cycad Society and a senior computer analyst at the University of Florida’s Department of Horticulture, owns 18 dogs. He needs them to help protect his 500-plant collection grown in four nursery-sized greenhouses. The collection, worth serious money, is a temptation to thieves. The dogs help. So does the fact Schutzman tells very few people exactly where he lives.
Schutzman had neither seen nor heard of cycads when he was studying for his bachelor’s degree in plant science at University of California, Davis. He was then an orchid man. But when a professor showed him his collection of cycads, Schutzman went, by his own admission, “nuts.” It just happens to some people, he says matter-of-factly. What happened to Schutzman was something he describes as “primal memory.” He felt immediately and powerfully connected to the prehistoric plants. Somewhere deep in his brain, deep in the collective unconscious, something resonated.