is covered with a wrinkled bark, as in Cycas siamensis, which has a
stem of unusual form (fig. 2). Small tuberous shoots, comparable on
a large scale with the bulbils of Lycopodium Selago, are occasionally
produced in the axils of some of the persistent leaf-bases; these are
characteristic of sickly plants, and serve as a means of vegetative
reproduction. In the genus Cycas the female flower is peculiar
among cycads in consisting of a terminal crown of separate leaf-like
carpels several inches in length; the apical portion of each carpellary
leaf may be broadly triangular in form, and deeply dissected on the
margins into narrow woolly appendages like rudimentary pinnae.
From the lower part of a
carpel are produced several
laterally placed ovules,
which become bright red
or orange on ripening; the
bright fleshy seeds, which
in some species are as large
as a goose’s egg, and the
tawny spreading carpels
produce a pleasing combination
of colour in the
midst of the long dark-green
fronds, which curve gracefully
upwards and outwards
from the summit of the
columnar stem. In Cycas
the stem apex, after producing
a cluster of carpellary
leaves, continues to elongate
and produces more bud-scales,
which are afterwards
pushed aside as a fresh
crown of fronds is developed.
The young leaves of Cycas consist of a straight rachis bearing numerous
linear pinnae, traversed by a single midrib; the pinnae are
circinately coiled like the leaf of a fern (fig. 3). The male flower of
Cycas conforms to the type of structure characteristic of the cycads,
and consists of a long cone of numerous sporophylls bearing many
oval pollen-sacs on their lower faces. The type described serves as a
convenient representative of its class. There are eight other living
genera, which may be classified as follows:—
Fig. 2.—Cycas siamensis.
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| Fig. 3.—Cycas. Young Frond. |
Classification.—A. Cycadeae.—Characterized by (a) the alternation of scale- and foliage-leaves (fig. 1) on the branched or unbranched stem; (b) the growth of the main stem through the female flower; (c) the presence of a prominent single vein in the linear pinnae; (d) the structure of the female flower, which is peculiar in not having the form of a cone, but consists of numerous independent carpels, each of which bears two or more lateral ovules. Represented by a single genus, Cycas. (Tropical Asia, Australia, &c.).
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| From a photograph of a plant in Peradeniya Gardens, Ceylon, by Professor R. H. Yapp. |
| Fig. 4.—Dioon edule. |
B. Zamieae.—The stem does not grow through the female flower; both male and female flowers are in the form of cones. (a) Stangerieae.—Characterized by the fern-like venation of the pinnae, which have a prominent midrib, giving off at a wide angle simple or forked and occasionally anastomosing lateral veins. A single genus, Stangeria, confined to South Africa, (b) Euzamieae.—The pinnae are traversed by several parallel veins. Bowenia, an Australian cycad, is peculiar in having bi-pinnate fronds (fig. 5). The various genera are distinguished from one another by the shape and manner of attachment of the pinnae, the form of the carpellary scales, and to some extent by anatomical characters. Encephalartos (South and Tropical Africa).—Large cones; the carpellary scales terminate in a peltate distal expansion. Macrozamia (Australia).—Similar to Encephalartos except in the presence of a spinous projection from the swollen distal end of the carpels. Zamia (South America, Florida, &c.).—Stem short and often divided into several columnar branches. Each carpel terminates in a peltate head. Ceratozamia (Mexico).—Similar in habit to Macrozamia, but distinguished by the presence of two horn-like spinous processes on the apex of the carpels. Microcycas (Cuba).—Like Zamia, except that the ends of the stamens are flat, while the apices of the carpels are peltate. Dioon (Mexico) (fig. 4).—Characterized by the woolly scale-leaves and carpels; the latter terminate in a thick laminar expansion of triangular form, bearing two placental cushions, on which the ovules are situated. Bowenia (Australia).—Bi-pinnate fronds; stem short and tuberous (fig. 5).
Fig. 5.—Bowenia spectabilis: frond.
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| Fig. 6.—Macrozamia heteromera. A, part of frond; B, single pinna. |
The stems of cycads are often described as unbranched; it is true that in comparison with conifers, in which the numerous branches, springing from the main stem, give a characteristic form to the tree, the tuberous or columnar stem of the Cycadaceae constitutes a striking distinguishing feature. Stem and leaf. Branching, however, occurs not infrequently: in Cycas the tall stem often produces several candelabra-like arms; in Zamia the main axis may break up near the base into several cylindrical branches; in species of Dioon (fig. 4) lateral branches are occasionally produced. The South African Encephalartos frequently produces several branches. Probably the oldest example of this genus in cultivation is in the Botanic Garden of Amsterdam, its age is considered by Professor de Vries to be about two thousand years: although an accurate determination of age is impossible, there is no doubt that many cycads grow very slowly and are remarkable for longevity. The thick armour of petiole-bases enveloping the stem is a characteristic Cycadean feature; in Cycas the alternation of scale-leaves and fronds is more clearly shown than in other cycads; in Encephalartos, Dioon, &c., the persistent scale-leaf bases are almost equal in size to those of the foliage-leaves, and there is no regular alternation of zones such as characterizes some species of Cycas. Another type of stem is illustrated by Stangeria and Zamia, also by a few forms of Cycas (fig. 2), in which the fronds fall off completely, leaving a comparatively smooth stem. The Cyas type of frond, except as regards the presence of a midrib in each pinna, characterizes the cycads generally, except Bowenia and Stangeria. In the monotypic genus Bowenia the large fronds, borne singly on the short and thick stem, are bi-pinnate (fig. 5); the segments, which are broadly ovate or rhomboidal, have several forked spreading veins, and resemble the large pinnules of some species of Adiantum. In Stangeria, also a genus represented by one species (S. paradoxa of South Africa), the long and comparatively broad pinnae, with an entire or irregularly incised margin, are very fern-like, a circumstance which led Kunze to describe the plant in 1835 as a species of the fern Lomaria. In rare cases the pinnae of cycads are lobed or branched: in Dioon spinulosum (Central America) the margin of the segments bears numerous spinous processes; in some species of Encephalartos, e.g. E. horridus, the lamina is deeply lobed; and in a species of the Australian genus Macrozamia, M. heteromera, the narrow pinnae are dichotomously branched almost to the base (fig. 6), and resemble the frond of some species of the fern Schizaea, or the fossil genus Baiera (Ginkgoales). An interesting species of Cycas, C. Micholitzii, has recently been described by Sir William Thiselton-Dyer from Annam, where it was collected by one of Messrs Sanders & Son’s collectors, in which the pinnae instead of being of the usual simple type are
