Cycad Garden

Overview: Cycads are the most primitive of all surviving seed-bearing plants. Their palm-like appearance is an evolutionary convergent feature and does not reflect a close kinship with true palms. In fact, cycads are cone-producing gymnosperms like pines. Only a few hundred species of cycads survive today, mostly in the tropics.

A closer look: At the dawn of the age of dinosaurs, 300 million years ago, the palm-like cycads were a dominant component of the earth’s flora.  Today, only a few hundred species survive, almost all confined to tropical and subtropical realms.

These ‘living fossils’ are the most primitive of all surviving seed bearing plants. Their closest relations are the other gymnosperms—pines, yews, spruces, firs, cedars, cypresses, etc.  Individual plants are either male or female and their reproductive structures—like those of most other gymnosperms—are cones.  Their superficial resemblance to palms is a convergent feature and is not indicative of a close kinship.

Cycads are among the slowest growing and longest lived of all plants; some survive for millennia.  The species displayed here are among the relatively few cold-hardy types.  The large multi-crowned specimen ahead is exceptionally large, possibly the largest in Florida.  Fairchild Tropical Gardens (Miami, FL) hosts one of the world’s finest cycad collections.