Etymology: Honoring Loran Whitelock of Los Angeles, California, eminent student and collector of cycads. Historical notes: Named in 1996 by American botanists Jeff Chemnick and Timothy Gregory. Distinguishing features: Few leaves with thin, long and wide leaflets, short unbranched trunks. Distribution and habitat: A narrow endemic in Oaxaca state, Mexico, on steep slopes in evergreen cloud forests in the Rio Valle Nacional. Conservation status: Endangered. Not listed by the 1997 IUCN Red List of Threatened Plants.
Description:
Plants acaulescent; stem 20-30 cm long, stem 12-18 cm diam; persistent leaf bases dark, spreading. Leaves 8-12 in crown. New growth emerging light green or bluish. Leaves light or bright green, semiglossy, 200-250 cm long, flat (not keeled) in section, with 60-80 leaflets; vernation straight; rachis not or slightly spirally twisted; petiole 100-125 cm long, unarmed. Leaflets not clustered, linear, symmetric, broadest below middle, falcate, weakly discolorous, thin or membranous; margins flat; median leaflets 30-50 cm long, 30-38 mm wide. Cataphylls 50 mm long. Pollen cones yellow-green, fusiform-cylindrical, 26-28 cm long, 1.5-2.8 cm diam.; peduncle 2-3 cm long; microsporophyll lamina 8 mm long, 3 mm wide. Seed cones yellow-green, ovoid-cylindrical, 35 cm long, 12 cm diam.; peduncle 3-4 cm long. Seeds ovoid, 31-33 mm long, 25-27 mm wide; sarcotesta white, aging to
brown.
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