Cycad

Cycads /ˈsaɪkædz/ are seed plants with a long fossil history that were formerly more abundant and more diverse than they are today. They typically have a stout and woody (ligneous) trunk with a crown of large, hard and stiff, evergreen leaves. They usually have pinnate leaves. The individual plants are either all male or all female (dioecious). Cycads vary in size from having trunks only a few centimeters to several meters tall. They typically grow very slowly and live very long, with some specimens known to be as much as 1,000 years old. Because of their superficial resemblance, they are sometimes mistaken for palms or ferns, but they are not closely related to either group. Cycads are gymnosperms (naked seeded), meaning their unfertilized seeds are open to the air to be directly fertilized by pollination, as contrasted with angiosperms, which have enclosed seeds with more complex fertilization arrangements. Cycads have very specialized pollinators, usually a specific species of beetle. They have been reported to fix nitrogen in association with various cyanobacteria living in the roots (the 'coralloid' roots). These photosynthetic bacteria produce a neurotoxin called BMAA that is found in the seeds of cycads. This neurotoxin may enter a human food chain as the cycad seeds may be eaten directly as a source of flour by humans or by wild or feral animals such as bats, and humans may eat these animals. It is hypothesized that this is a source of some neurological diseases in humans. Cycads have a cylindrical trunk which usually does not branch.Leaves grow directly from the trunk, and typically fall when older, leaving a crown of leaves at the top. The leaves grow in a rosette form, with new foliage emerging from the top and center of the crown. The trunk may be buried, so the leaves appear to be emerging from the ground, so the plant appears to be a basal rosette. The leaves are generally large in proportion to the trunk size, and sometimes even larger than the trunk. The leaves are pinnate (in the form of bird feathers, pinnae), with a central leaf stalk from which parallel 'ribs' emerge from each side of the stalk, perpendicular to it. The leaves are typically either compound (the leaf stalk has leaflets emerging from it as 'ribs'), or have edges (margins) so deeply cut (incised) so as to appear compound. Some species have leaves that are bipinnate, which means the leaflets each have their own subleaflets, growing in the same form on the leaflet as the leaflets grow on the stalk of the leaf (self-similar geometry). Due to superficial similarities in foliage and plant structure between cycads and palms they are often confused with each other. In reality, they belong to completely different phyla, and are not closely related at all. The similar structure may be evidence of convergent evolution. Despite this, there are still a number of differences between them. For one, both male and female cycads bear a cone-like reproductive structure called a strobilus, while palms are angiosperms and so flower and bear fruit. The mature foliage looks very similar between both groups, but the young emerging leaves of a cycad resemble a fiddlehead fern before they unfold and take their place in the rosette, while the leaves of palms are never coiled up and instead are just small versions of the mature frond. Another difference is in the stem. Both plants leave scars on the stem below the rosette where there used to be leaves, but the scars of a cycad are helically arranged and small, while the scars of palms are a circle that wraps around the whole stem. The stems of cycads are also in general rougher and shorter than those of palms. The three extant families of cycads all belong to the order Cycadales, and are Cycadaceae, Stangeriaceae, and Zamiaceae. These cycads have changed little since the Jurassic, compared to some major evolutionary changes in other plant divisions. Five additional families belonging to the Medullosales became extinct by the end of the Paleozoic Era. Cycads have been traditionally put as closely related to the extinct Bennettitales, however recent findings show marked differences In reproductive biology and general anatomy putting doubt on the traditional view. As of yet the evidence points to a pteridospermalean origin of cycads and to a close relation to the Ginkgoales, as shown in the following phylogeny: