The rarest plant on Earth

Encephalartos woodi (Wood's cycad) in the
Amsterdam Botanical Gardens

Wood's cycad is easily the rarest plant on Earth.  Only one plant was ever found in a small area of Ngoya Forest in South Africa in 1895 by John Wood (hence the name). Parts of this plant were removed and propagated by rooting and all specimens of Encephalartos woodii in different botanical gardens around the world are actually continuations of this one original tree. The original specimen was reomved from the wild in 1916, and died in 1964. As this tree was male, all of its clones are also male.