Nomad blackboard: Cycads

1. Cycads during the formation of the mineral

At first glance they may look like ordinary palm trees, but when you do a little more research you realize that you are dealing with one of the oldest plants in the world. Cycads have existed for 300 million years and also a plant can live up to 2000 years.
During the Jurassic period, the plant was so dominant in the world’s flora that it is sometimes referred to as the “Age of the Cycads”. Cycads are gymnosperms, as are conifers and ginkgos. This means that they have seeds without protection by an ovary or fruit. During the mid-Cretaceous, angiosperms, the group of plants that have flowers and produce seeds, evolved and replaced many gymnosperms, as did the cycads.

Therefore, compared to the variety of species that existed during the Jurassic period, only a few remained after the middle Cretaceous. But even now they are increasingly threatened with extinction, because we as humanity occupy their vital space. To conserve valuable plants, botanical gardens such as Marimurtra exhibit and have in their collection some species of this very special group of plants.

2. Cycad families and distribution

Cycads are not only one of the oldest plants in the world, but another interesting fact about them is the double gender. A cycad plant can be either male or female. When we look at the Zamiacae family, it is very difficult to see the differences between the plants. But when we look at the species of the Cycadacaeae family, you can separate the male plants from the female plants by looking at the cones.
The cone of the female plant forms a distinct structure of scales that are broad, pedunculate, often lobed, more loosely arranged and curved toward the center.
As you can read by scanning the QR code on the other side of the board, it is very important to conserve all existing types of cycads. That is why this botanical garden exhibits 41% of all cycads
existing species in the world.

You can find this percentage for each gender in the table.

The natural habitat of plants in the Cycadaceae family is in East Asia, southern Japan, Australia and the islands of the western Pacific. The natural habitat of plants in the family Zamicaceae is found mainly in Mexico, Central America and south-east Africa, but also in a part of Australia in Queensland. The Zamicaceae have such a wide geographic range, because when they evolved today’s continents were not arranged, as they are now. 300 million years ago, there were two supercontinents called Laurasia and Gondawa, which eventually separated into the continents we know today and took the plants with them.