noun
definition
Any plant of the division Cycadophyta, having a stout and woody trunk with a crown of large, hard and stiff, evergreen leaves.
Examples of cycad in a Sentence
The endosperm detached from a large Ginkgo ovule after fertilization bears a close resemblance to that of a cycad; the apex is occupied by a depression, on the floor of which two small holes mark the position of the archegonia, and the outgrowth from the megaspore apex projects from the centre as a short peg.
This is a large seed, with a very long micropyle; it has a beaked pollen-chamber, and a complex integument made up of hard and fleshy layers, closely resembling the seed of a modern Cycad; the nucellus, however, was free from the integument, each a sketch after Kidston.
The long, parallel-veined leaves of the Cordaiteae, which were commonly referred to Monocotyledons before their structure or connexion with other parts of the plant was known, have been shown by Renault to have essentially the same anatomy as a single leaflet of a Cycad such as Zamia.