The coontie (Zamia pumila Linnaeus) is a relict, a plant left over from pre-history. Coonties belong to a confusing and complex group of Zamias found throughout the Caribbean. There are two distinct varieties found in Florida, the "Florida" and the "East-coast". The "Florida" coontie has twisted leaflets held in a V-shape from the rachis. The "East-Coast" coontie has broader leaflets held flat. Both were probably introduced to Florida by the Tekesta (Tequesta) prior to the 1500s.

Zamias are slow growing. Most of the photosynthates (products of photosynthesis i.e. sugars, starches) are stored in a subterranean contractile stem. The ability to pull its stem into the earth keeps the coontie and its starch safe from fire and predation by herbivores. Coonties further discourage predation with a toxin, macrozamin.

Although coonties are toxic, they were used as a starch source (flour) by members of the Arawak/Taino Nation of the Caribbean. It is an odd quirk of fate that we know how the Natives used the coontie as a food source. In 1826, James Smithson willed that if his nephew and heir, Henry James Hungerford should die without heirs, then the entire estate should pass to the United States to establish a museum. The U.S. received Smithson's estate in August, 1838.

Ten days before the ship with Smithson's estate arrived, six ships under the command of Charles Wilkes left port to establish the U.S. as a naval power. The expedition was to circumnavigate the world in four years. Joel Poinsett, then Secretary of War, insisted the expedition have a complement of naturalists to catalog information of natural resources and people. Poinsett felt the expedition was also to establish the U.S. as a scientific power.

Poinsett, who oversaw the removal of Natives, argued for the foundation of a national museum with the monies from the Smithson estate. The national museum was to house the collections of the 1838 expedition and memorabilia of the U.S. Poinsett died before the museum was created by an act of Congress. (See Plant of the Week, December 24, 2001)

In the late 1800s, long after the original Tekesta were gone, the Seminole continued to use the coontie as a food source. In 1881, American Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution requested that Reverend Clay MacCauley "inquire into the condition and to ascertain the number of Seminole". MacCauley wrote a detailed account of Seminole life that included the preparation of a little known plant called the Koonti. The work was published by the Smithsonian in 1887.