Moving on... to "hot plant sex"?

Recently I took up a part time gig at a plant nursery that specializes in an exotic and endangered plant called a cycad, and part of my job currently is to travel to assorted gardens in LA County in order to help these plants procreate.  This pollination process, or at least how it's meant to occur in nature, has had its fair share of recent media attention.  The New York Times and the AP both recently wrote articles about cycad pollination.  The AP article is actually quite entertaining and makes one wonder how bored science writers and editors must get: "Think about strong perfume and a threesome, and what do you get? "  From my own experience I can tell you that pollinating these plants is not as hot and steamy as the AP article seems to imply.  If anything, it's prickly (I have to push my way to the center of the female plant with a bottle containing pollen and water), painful and occasionally draws the odd drop of blood.  But maybe some people are into that.

Pictured above is a plant I'm currently fertilizing: an Encephalartos ferox.  It's not extremely rare, but I think it's one of the more striking cycads to look at.  The red part is a female cone, which is what this plant produces instead of flowers in order to procreate.  The male cones are smaller and orange.  To give you a sense of perspective, the cone above is about a foot tall.  But don't even think about eating it: cycads are part of the diet of some indigenous people in Guam and are thought to be associated with a neurological disease that plagues that community.  Scary.