1. Zamiaceae Horianow
Sago-palm Family
Garrie P. Landry
Plants superficially palmlike or fernlike, perennial, evergreen, dioecious. Stems subterranean with exposed apex or aboveground, fleshy, stout, cylindric, simple or irregularly branched. Roots with small secondary roots; coral-like roots developing at base of stem at or below soil surface. Leaves pinnately compound, spirally clustered at stem apex, leathery, petiole and rachis unarmed [with stout spines]; leaflets entire or dentate [spinose], venation dichotomous [netted]; resin canals absent. Cones axillary, appearing terminal, short-peduncled [sessile], disintegrating at maturity; sporophylls densely crowded, spirally arranged, often covered with indument. Pollen cones soon shed, generally smaller and more numerous than seed cones; sporophylls bearing many crowded, small microsporangia (pollen sacs) adaxially; pollen spheric, not winged. Seed cones persistent for a year or more, 1(--2) per plant, nearly globose to ovoid, tapering sharply or blunt at apex; sporophylls peltate, thickened and laterally expanded distally, bearing 2(--3) ovules. Seeds angular, inner coat hardened, outer coat fleshy, often brightly colored; cotyledons 2.
Genera 9, species ca. 100 (1 genus, 1 species in the flora): primarily tropical to warm temperate regions, North Americ, Central America, South America, Africa, Australia.
SELECTED REFERENCES
Candolle, A. L. P. de. 1868. Cycadaceae. In: A. P. de Candolle and A. L. P. de Candolle, eds. 1823--1873. Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis.... Paris etc. Vol. 16, part 2, pp. 522--547.
Johnson, L. A. S. 1959. The families of cycads and the Zamiaceae of Australia. Proc. Linn. Soc. New South Wales 84: 64--117.
Schuster, J. 1932. Cycadaceae. In: H. G. A. Engler, ed. 1900--1953. Das Pflanzenreich.... Berlin. Vol. 99[IV,1], pp. l--168.
