And for all that some of them look similar to palms, they are not related at all. The following text and pictures I have used from that book without permission. Cycads are woody plants which produce seeds. Although they may have a general appearance which is readily identifiable by most people, they are usually linked to palms or ferns, when in fact they are not related to either. Cycads are actually a unique assemblage of plants and although they are grouped with the gymnosperms they are in point of fact unrelated to any other group of living plants.
Cycads certainly have a distinctive appearance which is related to their primitiveness or antiquity.
Within the living seed plants they are nearly unique in that they produce motile sperm cells, and thus are an important link to the earliest of the ancient seed plants. Cycads flourished in eons past and reached their peak in the Mesozoic Era some 150 million years ago. While the fossil story may still be unclear, it is certain that cycads were more varied and profuse in earlier times and more widely distributed. Today cycads may be regarded as relicts consisting of small populations distributed disjunctly on many continents. Living cycads are found in the tropical, subtropical and warm temperate regions of both the north and south hemispheres.