Talk:Fossil Cycad National Monument

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A fact from Fossil Cycad National Monument appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 6 February 2007. The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Fossil Cycad National Monument, established in South Dakota in 1922, was withdrawn as a national monument in 1956 because all of the visible fossils had been stolen?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2007/February.

Wikipedia

Inaccuracies

I don't know enough of cycads to make an athoritative article here, but I did notice some innacuracies in describing cycads. First of all, cycads were described as "fern-like". This comparison should only be used carefully, since it seems to suggest cycads are related to ferns. (They are not.) Second, the article, near the end, speaks of cycad fruits and flowers. Cycads, being coniferous, cannot have flowers, nor can they have fruits, I believe. (Although their seeds can be encased in what looks rather like a fruit.) Yew arils are confused similarly. I don't know the proper terminology for cycad seeds, but by flowers, I assume the source meant male and female cones. Vlmastra 21:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. Let me check that out. --Rbraunwa 22:59, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My sources use the terminology I adopted here, but the "flowers" come from a 1930 nontechnical NPS publication that even shows a reconstructed "flower". Would that be what a mature cycad cone looks like? Anyway, I took out that sentence since I can't say just what it means now. Thanks again for catching it. --Rbraunwa 23:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oddly enough, the "cycads" of Fossil Cycad National Monument were not cycads, but cycadeoids. See for example Wieland 1916 (Wieland, G. R. 1916. American fossil cycads. Volume II. Taxonomy. Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington D. C. Publication Number 34.) - all of the "Minnekahta" species (another name for the site) are species of Cycadeoidea. 207.224.82.17 (talk) 17:46, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]