Cycad

Cycad - Body

Cycad

Cycad Walk

Expand image Green cycads in the foreground and tall green palms in the background.

Cycads

  • Cycads are very old plants; fossils show that they grew on Earth 250 million years ago. Guess what? That means cycads were alive during the time of dinosaurs! When dinosaurs became extinct, cycads continued to live and grow.
  • Cycads used to be found all over the world. Now there are not very many left, and they are hard to find in the wild. But you can find cycads all over The Huntington: in the Palm Garden, Jungle Garden, Australian Garden, Japanese Garden, and many other locations—including a new landscape called the Cycad Walk.
  • The cycad’s native environment is in the tropics. Imagine you are exploring for cycads in the tropics. What might the weather feel like?
  • Cycads don’t have flowers; their pollen and seeds are produced in cones that can be really big and colorful.

Activity

Take the Dinosaur Plants Virtual Tour. Pick your favorite plant and write a comic strip. Take a piece of paper and draw six boxes. In each box draw a scene with your characters; the characters could be a dinosaur, a cycad, or even you. Next, add speech bubbles and write text for your characters to tell your story.

Click on these links to explore more

Cycad Collection

A Passion for Cycads