How to Use cycad in a Sentence

cycad

noun
Definition of cycadnext
  • These cycads grow very slowly and can take 50 years to reach 10 feet in height.
    — Marissa Wu, Southern Living, 12 Mar. 2024
  • The forests were lush and green, filled with shrubby cycads and fan-leafed ginkgos.
    — Jess Romeo, Popular Science, 15 Nov. 2019
  • Look for ancient cycad species, some of them extinct in the wild, and aloes with dramatic colors and shapes.
    — Helen Purcell Montag, San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 May 2023
  • The Olson-Binder garden in Poway features cycads, rare ferns and orchids.
    — Elizabeth Marie Himchak, Pomerado News, 7 Mar. 2018
  • But of South Africa’s 38 cycad species, 25 are threatened with extinction.
    — The Economist, 19 Oct. 2017
  • White cycad scale is one of these that seems to sneak into the plantings to quickly cover trunks, leaves and inflorescence of the sagos to cause their decline.
    — Tom MacCubbin, OrlandoSentinel.com, 3 June 2017
  • Grown both as a houseplant and an outdoor plant, this cycad is popular for exotic, palm-like fronds.
    — Steve Bender, Southern Living, 22 Mar. 2021
  • College analyzed cycad seeds and focused on a compound in them, BMAA.
    — Kathleen McAuliffe, Discover Magazine, 21 July 2011
  • Check sagos for white cycad scale; control as needed with a natural oil spray.
    — Tom MacCubbin, OrlandoSentinel.com, 31 Mar. 2018
  • Imagine a landscape where redwood-like metasequoias towered over the hills; slim alder-like trees, ginkgos and vines dwelled at the forest margins; and lush ferns, cycads and horsetails packed the swamps.
    — Kate Siber, Alaska Dispatch News, 19 Aug. 2017
  • Start in the ancient forest (which despite its name, debuted in 2015) where a carpet-quiet path winds past cycads, some of the oldest plants on the planet, and redwood trees.
    — Los Angeles Times, 20 Sep. 2019
  • The nodosaur specifically ate the soft leaves of certain ferns and largely neglected common cycad and conifer leaves.
    — Ashley Strickland, CNN, 2 June 2020
  • The genomes, from three fern species and a cycad, one of the oldest kinds of seed-bearing plants, show genes key to making seeds are the same as those in the spore-producing machinery of ferns, which emerged tens of millions of years earlier.
    — Byelizabeth Pennisi, science.org, 22 Sep. 2022
  • Vast, grassy plains only spread about 36 million years later, so much of the low-growing groundcover of the Late Cretaceous was ferns, cycads and similar plants.
    — Riley Black, Smithsonian Magazine, 10 Mar. 2023
  • This year, there are staples like firebush, rare natives like pearlberry, and rather hard-to-find cycads like Encephalartoshildebrandtii.
    — Kenneth Setzer, miamiherald, 6 Apr. 2018
  • Despite the common name, sago palm is actually a cycad and produces cones instead of flowers.
    — Marissa Wu, Southern Living, 12 Mar. 2024
  • As dinosaurs lumbered through the humid cycad forests of ancient South America 180 million years ago, primeval lizards scurried, unnoticed, beneath their feet.
    — Kurt Schwenk, The Conversation, 16 June 2021
  • Planted with an assortment of exotic palms, tropical cycads, bromiliads with stiff spiny leaves and dozens of succulents, the garden sits on a half-acre of terraced grounds with the Bluebird Canyon stream running through its center.
    — Erika I. Ritchie, Orange County Register, 4 May 2017
  • Sago palms, also known as cycads, cardboard palms, fern palms and coontie plants, hail from tropical and subtropical areas but have become popular ornamental plants in the United States in the past 10 to 20 years.
    — Kim Campbell Thornton, sacbee, 14 Mar. 2018
  • Several cycad species have very low genetic diversity, as do the insects that pollinate them, like weevils.
    — Ed Yong, Discover Magazine, 20 Oct. 2011
  • For extreme collectors, rarity only makes a cycad more desirable.
    — The Economist, 19 Oct. 2017
  • Throughout Palomar there are plantings of hardwoods, succulents, proteas, cycads, pollinator plants, rosebushes, palms, bamboos and legumes.
    — Pam Kragen, San Diego Union-Tribune, 11 Aug. 2019
  • In addition to necessitating an understanding of seasonality and growth cycles, bush foods may require unique processing and preparation, such as wild yams and cycad seeds, both of which are toxic unless first leached in water.
    — Jessica Wynne Lockhart, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Aug. 2023
  • A cycad, sago palm (Cycas revoluta) is not actually related to palms.
    — Dan Gill, NOLA.com, 2 June 2017
  • Some plants, such as cycads in the Ancient Forest, remained relatively unscathed thanks to their naturally waxy surface, while other flowers’ dark pigmentation provided protection from the sun.
    — Sara Cardine, latimes.com, 12 July 2018
  • During her lifetime, Walska was more famous for running through six husbands than for creating dramatic displays of aloes, bromeliads, cycads, cactuses, epiphyllums, succulents, ferns and more in themed landscapes.
    — Emily Young, latimes.com, 29 Mar. 2018
  • Among those special single specimen plants, most installed near the house, are several prehistoric and unusual plant varieties, including the sago palm; cycads, including Dioon, Encephalartos and Zamia; and the Queensland bottle tree.
    — Nicole Sours Larson, San Diego Union-Tribune, 12 Aug. 2023
  • Vendors will be selling orchids, carnivorous plants, bromeliads, cacti, cycads, palms, epiphyllum, tillandsia, terrarium plants, begonias and tree ferns.
    — Jeanette Marantos, Los Angeles Times, 1 June 2024
  • Guam’s coconut rhinoceros beetles have started burrowing into cycad trees.
    — Rafil Kroll-Zaidi, Harpers Magazine, 5 Jan. 2021
  • However, all cycads contain at least three toxins affecting animals, including people.
    — Kenneth Setzer, miamiherald, 14 June 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'cycad.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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