[2] The specific and common name both honour John Medley Wood, curator of the Durban Botanic Garden and director of the Natal Government Herbarium of South Africa, who discovered the plant in 1895.

bispinna), and raised to the rank of species in 1908 by the English horticulturalist Henry Sander[5] from studying a specimen in his collection, which was apparently one of the basal offsets taken from the original clump.

[4] To determine the relationship between E. natalensis and E. woodii, the RAPD technique was used to generate genetic fingerprints and data analysed using distance methods.

[2] Three basal offsets were collected by Wood's deputy, James Wylie, in 1903 and planted in the Durban Botanic Gardens.

[4] One specimen was received at the National Botanic Gardens of Ireland in Glasnevin in 1905[9] where the register records it as "Encephalartos way of E. Alten[steinii]" costing 1 guinea from Sander & Sons.

[4] By 1912 there was only one 3 metres (9.8 ft) tall trunk left in the wild, and in 1916, the Forestry Department arranged to have it removed and sent to the Government Botanist in Pretoria.

[4] A sucker from one of the Durban Botanic Gardens plants was sent to Kirstenbosch near Cape Town, South Africa in 1916 by James Wylie.

[1] As is the case with all members of the genus Encephalartos, Encephalartos woodii is protected by both national and international legislation:[4] In South Africa one requires a permit from Nature Conservation to move, sell, buy, donate, receive, cultivate and sell Endangered Flora and to own adult cycads.

This means that wild collected material may not be traded and for each and every artificially cultivated Encephalartos plant or piece of a plant or a cone or pollen or seed, being carried over an international border requires a CITES Export Permit issued by the authority of the exporting country, and a CITES Import Permit issued by the authority of the importing country.