James Clugston was on the hunt for a type of tarantula called a "baboon spider" in South Africa when something else grabbed his attention.
"This one plant stood out to me … it's blue, but it's super, super spiky. I'm like, 'What is that? That is amazing'," he said.
The odd-looking prickly plant — Encephalartos horridus — is a member of the cycad family and sparked an interest in the species that would turn into Dr Clugston's life's work.
The tough palm-like plants pre-date the dinosaur era by 75 million years.
Although they have evolved significantly since then, Dr Clugston said their Jurassic lineage and prehistoric characteristics contributed to their popularity.
"By studying cycads, we can understand so much about evolution," he said.
"But if we don't protect these plants, we're going to lose them forever."
They may have outlived the dinosaurs, but these ancient plants are now under threat due to land clearing and illegal poaching.
More than 60 per cent of cycad species are endangered and 15 species are already extinct in the wild.
Dr Clugston is now a botanist at the Royal Botanic Garden Sydney and working on building up its collection of cycads.
"We collect seeds and small seedlings from the wild, we bring them back, we grow them on, and we put them in the garden," he said.
Private collectors spend big
It is not only botanic gardens that are amassing as many cycad species as possible for conservation and research.
Private collectors have been known to spend tens of thousands of dollars sourcing rare cycads.
Brad Pitt is among celebrity cycad aficionados.
The Hollywood actor's landscape designer Jay Griffith told the New York Times he planted a grove of Cycas revolutas, a common species, and Pitt loved them.
"He kept saying, 'I want more and more'. To me, they are most majestic when you plant gobs of them. You expect a triceratops to come around the corner and just gobble them up," Mr Griffith told the publication.
Stan Walkley has been collecting cycads since 1983 and has more than 100 on his property on the Sunshine Coast.
For Mr Walkley, it is cycads' architectural quality that sets them apart.
"They're not scrubby-looking bloody wattle trees. They're something to look at," he said.
"The wattles are lovely when they're in flower but most natives are good for a while and then they look like straggly looking sticks.
"When [cycads] get those new flushes of leaves, they're magnificent."
Mr Walkley runs two nurseries on the Sunshine Coast, specialising in cycads, and believes interest is growing.
While many varieties can be sourced legitimately, some zealous collectors go to extreme, and sometimes illegal, lengths.
Mr Walkley says it takes patience to grow cycads from seedlings and those who do not want to wait will sometimes "pay someone to go and steal it out of the wild".
Australia a hotspot
Australia is home to 80 of the world's 360 species of cycads, making it a biodiversity hotspot.
While they are mostly protected now, native cycads have not always been appreciated.
One Australian species known as the "twisted ricket weed" gained its unfortunate name during a devastating drought in the 1970s and 80s.
With nothing else to eat, cattle began chewing it.
"The toxins that are contained within the plants damage the nerve collection on the spine, and so it means they can't walk anymore," Dr Clugston said.
Farmers in New South Wales and Queensland were told to remove the plants, which were poisoning their hungry cattle.
The mass clearing that resulted was devastating for the slow-growing species which can take 20 to 40 years to produce one cone.
While its reputation has improved since then, more work is required to preserve many of the endangered species.
Dr Clugston and a team of scientists have been researching the genetic diversity of wild populations in the Northern Territory.
The results paint a bleak picture for the future of cycads, with evidence of inbreeding signalling millions of years of evolution is coming to an end.
"The less genetically diverse something is, the less adaptability it's got," Dr Clugston said.
He said that made the in situ collections even more important.
"When we put them in the garden, we create really good signage to show how important these plants are, and what they mean, and what the purpose is for conservation," he said.
