Tebatso M. Ledwaba

1 Introduction Cycads, often referred to as “living fossils”, are an ancient group of gymnosperms that have persisted through multiple extinction events, demonstrating remarkable resilience to environmental stressors such as nutrient deficiencies and drought (Meng et al. 2022). Once widely distributed during the warm Mesozoic era, extant cycads thought to be just 12 million years old are now confined to the tropics and subtropics due to climate shifts (Nagalingum et al. 2011).