Etymology: Named after the late Professor Sergio Sabato, cycad taxonomist of the Orto Botanico, Naples, Italy. Distinguishing features: Female cones blue-green to blue-brown in color. Leaflets lanceolate, shorter and wider than those of C. kuesteriana to which it is related. Distribution and habitat: Mexico - Hidalgo and Queretaro Conservation status: 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants category V. Description:
Plants acaulescent; stem 25 cm long, stem 17.5 cm diam; persistent leaf bases dark, spreading. Leaves 2-6 in crown. New growth emerging bronze, red or chocolate brown. Leaves dark green, 80 cm long, flat (not keeled) in section, with 60-136 leaflets; vernation straight; rachis not or slightly spirally twisted; petiole 25-45 cm long, armed with prickles. Leaflets not clustered, linear, symmetric, broadest below middle, not falcate, weakly discolorous, thick or leathery; margins incurved; median leaflets 12-25 cm long, 12-24 mm wide. Cataphylls 45 mm long. Pollen cones brown, fusiform-cylindrical, 6.5-23 cm long, 1.9-3 cm diam.; peduncle 1.5-11 cm long; microsporophyll lamina 9-14 mm long, 4-7 mm wide. Seed cones green, ovoid-cylindrical, 6-12 cm long, 3.4-5.6 cm diam.; peduncle 2-10 cm long; megasporophyll 17-26 mm long, with an expanded peltate apex 11-28 mm wide. Seeds ovoid, 13-19 mm long, 11-14 mm wide; sarcotesta white, aging to
brown.
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