red is for danger

These are the nuts of the Zamia palm, Macrozamia riedlei, a member of the cycad family.
Endemic to WA, the palm, a rather straggly beasty it must be said,grows as an understory plant in jarrah forests and woodland.
On one of our afternoon walk trails, I've spotted many a palm but not for many years found a 'clutch' of the nuts, so this was a real find today.

The red, fleshy layer and starchy nut is much enjoyed by native possums, mice, bush rats and emus (not many of those around here mind you) but, tasty as they may look, not a good idea for human consumption without a great deal of preparation before hand.

17th century Dutch explorers and those who followed, munched on them raw and suffered from cycad poisoning. The west coast aboriginal people avoided such disastrous effects by soaking, cleansing, burying and fermenting the nuts before roasting, drying or grounding them into a flour.

Cycad fossils date back to at least the Permian (280 million years ago) and maybe even older.
What survivors!