
Manual of the Southeastern Flora - Small
Copyright - UNC Press 1998, 1999. All Rights Reserved.
Palm-like or fern-like plants. Leaves in a crown: blades pinnate. Flowers in cones of approximate scales or on less modified leaves. Staminate cone with scales bearing several pollen-sacs. Ovulate cone with two or more ovules on each scale. Seed drupe-like or nut-like.
Dioecious plants with subterranean or aerial stems. Leaves clustered: leaflets with 1 or several ribs or veins. Staminate cone deciduous. Ovulate leaf or cone persistent. Seeds exposed on the margins of the ovulate leaf or enclosed in a cone. - The most primitive living seed-plants, even showing some characters of the ferns in their structure. There are about 9 genera and nearly 100 species in tropical and subtropical regions.
1. ZAMIA L. Fern-like plants with erect, simple, or sometimes branched, subterranean, stout, fleshy, farinaceous, stems. Leaves erect or spreading: leaflets jointed to the rachis, with parallel veins. Cones stalked, the staminate one more slender than the ovulate one: scales peltate, spiral. Mature ovulate cone erect. - Represented by four species in Florida, but more abundantly in the West Indies and continental tropical America, where other genera occur as well. - COONTIES. CONTIS. COMPTIES. COMFORTROOTS. FLORIDA-ARROWROOTS. WILD-SAGOS. - The zamias were known to the early Seminoles as Conti hateka which means white-root or white bread-plant.