Editing Cycas OzIntro (section)

=== Evolution: ===
The genus ''Cycas'' has such pronounced primitive
features that early botanists theorized that it was the
missing link connecting  the pteridosperms
or cycadofilicales of the Devonian Era with Zamiaceae
fossils which occured in the Mesozoic age, a much later
period. Even though the genus has very primitive features,
(for example central fronds rising circinately from the apex
and the female not formimg a cone) Dr. L.A.S. Johnson stated
that the genus could hardly have risen from a period before
the Zamiaceae since the genus distinguishing single vein stem
in the pinnae could not have given rise to the frond
condition of living zamiads. Another remarkable thing about
condition of the seed arrangement of ''Cycas'' is that the
seeds form on the margins of a brown-furred, frondlike
megasporophyll issuing from the crown of the trunk and in the
Australian species hanging pendant between the bases of the
fronds. This last feature is definitely similar to what we
know of the pteridosperms of the Paleozoic age. Perhaps
''Cycas'' can be classified as the most primitive genus
alive today. From illustrations given by Professor
Chamberlain in 1919, the primitive seed ferns were also very
similar to this.