Why your sago palm has grown a large alien-looking lump on the top

If you have a cycas revoluta, commonly known as a sago palm, it does some weird stuff, including something that we usually associate with pine trees - it cones. And another unusual aspect of this plant, which isn't a palm at all, it's a cycad, is that each plant is either male or female. And so when your plant gets to be old enough, it will cone. If it's a male, the cone will look like, well, a cone. If it's a female, it will look like a big weird alien-looking lump. And it gets weirder, depending on whether your plant decides to just cone that year, or if it will cone and then grow fronds right through the cones. Yes, that happens, but it's rare, so if yours is doing that right now, go take a pic.

This plant isn't mine (I wish it was!), it's over at an apartment complex not far from me. And yes, it's a female, and yes there are fronds growing right through it. If you take a closer look you'll see seeds in there, and if the plant nearby, which is a male, coned at exactly the right time, and some pollen made its way over to the female cone, then there will be viable seeds.

By the way, here is a pic I have of a male cone. As you can see, it looks more like what we think of as a cone, and that's how you can tell the gender of your plant. Yeah, you have to wait for it to cone, and it can take decades. And then plant of the opposite gender needs to be coning at exactly the right time, and the pollen needs to travel, by bugs or wind, to fertilize the seeds.

So there you go - life finds a way.