Cycas revoluta but will usually flush (or grow) several new leaves by spring. This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit (confirmed 2017). The pith contains edible starch, and is used for making sago. Before use, the starch must be carefully washed to leach out toxins contained in the pith. Extracting edible starch from the sago cycad requires special care due to the poisonous nature of cycads. Cycad sago is used for many of the same purposes as palm sago. Sago is extracted from the sago cycad by cutting the pith from the stem, root and seeds of
Sago unsuited for other forms of agriculture, so sago cultivation is often the most ecologically appropriate form of land-use and the nutritional deficiencies of the food can often be compensated for with other readily available foods. Sago starch can be baked (resulting in a product analogous to bread, pancake, or biscuit) or mixed with boiling water to form a paste. It is a main staple of many traditional communities in New Guinea and Maluku in the form of papeda, Borneo, South Sulawesi (most known in Luwu Regency) and Sumatra. In Palembang, sago is one of the ingredients to make pempek. In