Talk:Cycad

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There is a type of Cycad that is endemic throughout peninsular Florida known as Coontie "Palm". Many of these parts of Florida are classified by some as warm temperate climate regions, as opposed to subtropical.

It would be useful to provide some information to help distinguish a cycad from a palm.

Morphology

Are there any morphological similarities among cycads other than evergreen leaves? From the pictures of different cycads they seem to vary tremendously in morphology. SCHZMO ✍ 23:38, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

"They are very specialized pollinators" - what is "they"?

Its pollinators

To who questioned about "who are the pollinators":

The only cycad's pollinators known nowadays are bettles. KekoDActyluS 19:29, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Cycadophyta?

The Article states that the class Cycadopsida is part of the division Cycadophyta. But it is rather that Cycadopsida is part of the sub-division Coniferophytina, and division Spermatophyta, isn´t it? Please correct me if I should be wrong... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.136.149.95 (talk) 00:17, 18 December 2006 (UTC).

Botanists have applied various classifications to this group. Some modern classifications do indeed group all seed plants into a single division, and this system of classification is still found in paleobotany textbooks. However, a majority of botanists prefer to place each living group of seed plants into a separate division. You'll also find that the draft proposals for the PhyloCode recommend the name Cycadophyta, without assigning a rank to the group. This leaves open the messy question of how to classify all the fossils, but it is the system that Wikipedia has adopted. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:39, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Culinary use?

The Miso article, in the list of types of miso, gives one that is purportedly made from cycad pulp. Is this accurate? If so, it should be added to the article. Are there any cycad enthusiasts out there willing to do some research on this? Badagnani 01:30, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I think this is a case of confusing two very different plants called "sago palm": Metroxylon sagu and Cycas revoluta. Rarely, and usually only in famines, seeds and sometimes stem of the cycad are eaten. The palm, on the other hand, is the source of sago, a commercially important starch. --Una Smith (talk) 03:14, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Taxobox image

I changed the image because the "cone" of C. revoluta is unusual among cycads. KP Botany 21:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Cyads And Ferns

Were not that sure, that ferns are not related to cycas...

Refers to : ' A Brief Review of THE FOSSIL CYCADS' by ROBERT BUCKLEY

Yours,

Alexander Meire and Simon Baeckens —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.129.172.99 (talk) 09:51, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

The scientific community is sure. Cycads produce seeds, and so are seed plants. Ferns do not produce seeds, and share a large genomic inversion with horsetails and whisk ferns—an inversion that is found in no other group of plants. Your confusion comes from a serious error that Buckley made in his publication: He mistakenly called the seed ferns the pteridophytes, when they are actually called the pteridosperms (a group of seed plants with fern-like leaves). --EncycloPetey (talk) 13:18, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

Extinct example

The New York Times says there is an extinct species of cycad that they call "THE BIOFUELIFER ANTI-ARRHENIUS. Svante Arrhenius would never have invented the greenhouse effect if he’d heard of this cycad plant. It gulped in carbon dioxide and methane through its leaves and exuded streams of high-octane petroleum products through its bark as a defense against beetles. Not only that, it had bright red leaves that were good to eat. Though some said they tasted a little like herring. Florida was once the home of this herbaceous panacea. Converting the entire state to a plantation of these palm trees could solve a lot of problems." What are they referring to, if anything? zafiroblue05 | Talk 22:44, 23 November 2008 (UTC)

I've no idea. It seems to come from the imagination of the author. Note that the author precedes his comments with "And if the genome engineers wanted to conjure up something actually useful..." which suggests it is a fictitious invention. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:25, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, re-reading it you're probably right, it just comes off as the writer saying - Well, mammoths would be cool, Neanderthals would be interesting, but a truly useful thing to clone would be this plant - as if it's a less sexy but more useful idea right alongside the (obviously real) species listed before. Just confusing, is all... zafiroblue05 | Talk 04:18, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Outdated

This article is way outdated. Wasn't there a genetic study on cycads that proved they only evolved 10 million years ago? 101.98.128.11 (talk) 07:50, 2 September 2012 (UTC)

Article split?

I notice that the article is being split and reconfigured, but there is no mention of it here. The changes seem to be justified, but there should be at least a brief explanation on the Talk pages of the affected articles, for the record. Thanks, in behalf of future befuddled editors! Reify-tech (talk) 15:40, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

The main reason for splitting the article is that Medullosales are now included within the higher taxa referred to as cycads, i.e., Cycadopsida and Cycadophyta. Some of the material that was about living cycads should appear only on the page about Cycadales, the order that includes all the living members of the group (and some extinct species as well), so "Cycad" is now a bit smaller than it was before, as befits a group with mostly extinct members that we don't know a lot about. Perhaps people would like to make "Cycad" the page about Cycadales rather than the higher groups, with a suitable hatnote, but the initial main piece of work is to split this into two pages, copyedit, and correct various statements that were over-generalized. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:03, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for explaining why, and what you are doing. I defer to your expertise in this area. Reify-tech (talk) 15:29, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually I think that the statement above may be incorrect, Medullosales are treated as seed ferns elsewhere and also currently in Wikipedia, should they not be removed from the taxobox here?? Tony 1212 (talk) 19:39, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

I feel that the information on this page and the page Cycadales are mostly overlapping, and would be much better to fuse the two pages and remove the redundant information. If the reason for this page is to include Medullosales, the inclusion of this group in the Cycadophyta (i.e. the close relationship between Medullosales and Cycadales) has not been supported since Crane (1985). it would be better to change this page to include a better view of the fossil record of the Cycadophyta and the issues surrounding their systematic and phylogenetic placement.--PalaeoPhytologist (talk) 07:59, 13 January 2021 (UTC)

@PalaeoPhytologist: Done. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:05, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Wrong fossil illustration

Zamites feneonis was not a Cycad, but a Bennetittale, a group of plants morphologically close to Cycad (probable symplesiomorphy), but clealy divergent. If you want a fossil illustaion of Cycad's ancestors see the fossil genus Paracycas, Nilssonia, Ctenis, Pseudoctenis, ...

P.S. Z. feneonis was a Upper Jurassic (Oxfordian, Kimmeridgian, maybe Tithonian) specie of France, Germany, ... see Barale, 1981 (La paléoflore Jurassique du Jura français) for the description (in french; aivaible on google books). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.20.49.176 (talk) 10:52, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Good point. I've removed the image for now; perhaps others would like to add something suitable. We do have little pages on Zamites and Nilssonia (plant) which could use work and nothing so far on Paracycas, Ctenis, or Pseudoctenis. Much needs to be done ... Sminthopsis84 (talk) 03:06, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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missing 'Other Languages' link

Hello dear people, could someone please put in a link to the corresponding German language page?

Its name is: 'Palmfarne'.

(Sorry for not doing it myself, I used to be able to do it, but either it isn't possible any more for nonregistereds or I have become too stupid *g* ;-) ) Great thanks to anyone who is going to do it! :-) :-) 2A02:3032:40C:ED1C:2:2:E738:17A2 (talk) 11:14, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

So now I found out how to do it, but it is not possible in the moment/ by me, because this "object":

https://m.wikidata.org/wiki/Q157114

links to it.

I am sure that someone made a mistake there, as common practice is that Wikipedia-articles link to each other.

(The German article does link to the English one, just not, because of this mistake, the other way round. The English one also links to 23 other language articles, just not the German one. So I'm very sure that something was done wrong there.)

Although I did find out how to, normally, put in an additional 'Other Languages' link, I do not believe I will be able to fix that Wikidata-Linking-mistake o.O

Please, dear "Pros", help! 2A02:3032:40C:ED1C:2:2:E738:17A2 (talk) 12:03, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

soooo...

it seems the problem comes from the English article redirecting from 'Cycadales' to 'Cycads'.

I now forced a "local" language link, which works, hooray!

I took the information from here:

https://en.wiki.x.io/wiki/Help:Interlanguage_links#Adding_a_new_link

I know (it is silly to continually talk to myself here AND) this does not solve the underlying problem, this redirection-thing, and it is not the preferred way, but I see no other way in the moment in which * I * could adress it.

So if anyone knows how to *reaaaally correcttlllyyy* do this – it's your turn ;-)) – I will leave all my 'talking to myself here as documentation/ explanation, I guess :-D 2A02:3032:40C:ED1C:2:2:E738:17A2 (talk) 12:46, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

I've edited wikidata so its Cycadales link to this article. Because the link to Cycadophyta was blocking this change I linked the wikidata cycadophyta to the redirect here. This one-to-one linking restriction is annoying, but I think it now does what you want without the local link. —  Jts1882 | talk  13:41, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! :-)) 46.114.6.25 (talk) 06:54, 7 July 2022 (UTC)