''Cycas campestris'' is a species of

cycad Cycads are seed plants that typically have a stout and woody (ligneous) trunk with a crown of large, hard, stiff, evergreen and (usually) pinnate leaves. The species are dioecious, that is, individual plants of a species are either male o ...

in the genus ''

Cycas ''Cycas'' is a genus of plants belonging to a very ancient lineage, the Cycadophyta, which are not closely related to palms, ferns, trees or any other modern group of plants. They are evergreen perennials which achieved their maximum diversity in ...

'', native to southeastern

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

in the lowland region near

Port Moresby (; Tok Pisin: ''Pot Mosbi''), also referred to as Pom City or simply Moresby, is the capital and largest city of Papua New Guinea. It is one of the largest cities in the southwestern Pacific (along with Jayapura) outside of Australia and New ...

. It grows in open, grassy locations, often in areas with frequent grass fires. The stems are erect, up to 2.5 m tall and 20 cm diameter. The leaves are orange tomentose on emerging, soon becoming bright glossy green and glabrous, 80–170 cm long, pinnate, with 120-230 leaflets. The leaflets are 8.5–16 cm long and 5–8 mm wide, and lie flat or in a shallow 'v'-shape on either side of the leaf stem. The leaf petioles are 15–90 cm long, and armed with sharp spines at the base. The female

cones A cone is a three-dimensional geometric shape that tapers smoothly from a flat base (frequently, though not necessarily, circular) to a point called the apex or vertex. A cone is formed by a set of line segments, half-lines, or lines conn ...

are open, with

sporophyll A sporophyll is a leaf that bears sporangia. Both microphylls and megaphylls can be sporophylls. In heterosporous plants, sporophylls (whether they are microphylls or megaphylls) bear either megasporangia and thus are called megasporophylls, or ...

s 13–25 cm long, with two to six ovules per sporophyll. The lamina is lanceolate, with spined dentate margins and an apical spine. The

sarcotesta The sarcotesta is a fleshy seedcoat, a type of testa. Examples of seeds with a sarcotesta are pomegranate and some cycad seeds. The sarcotesta of pomegranate seeds consists of epidermal cells derived from the integument In biology, an integu ...

is 2-3.5 mm thick and orange, the sclerotesta flattened and long ovoid, with a network of shallow grooves. The male cones are solitary, narrow ovoid, 13–17 cm long and 7–9 cm diameter, brown, the sporophylls 33–40 mm long with an apical spine.

References

Cycad Pages: ''Cycas campestris''IUCN Redlist: ''Cycas campestris''
*Whitelock, L. M. (2002). The Cycads. Timber Press, Portland, Oregon. {{Taxonbar, from=Q5197925 campestris Endemic flora of Papua New Guinea Near threatened plants Plants described in 1994