Description and main characteristics

Emerging cones

The apex bears usually 10-40 leaves, app. 1 m long, which grow into all directions and form a unique spherical crown. The dark green leaflets hanging from the rhachis down in an inverted V-shaped form capture the attention at the very first sight. They are all of a similar length, do not get shorter towards the end of a leaf, thus, the leaves seem to have a „cut-off“ ends.

"Cut-off" leaves

Three-sided leaves´ microcycas 

Also noticeable are the reproductive organs – cones, with diameter to 16 cm and length to 90 cm in female, slender in male, with maximum length to 50 cm.

Mature female cone

Mature seeds are pale red, sometimes faceted, 2x4 cm.

Decomposing cone with mature seeds

The main vertical roots can grow to 1 meter deep in a free soil, but, more typically, the roots form a tangle growing on and between the rocks and boulders.
As in all cycads, the superficial roots form a richly divided corraloid rooots, which bind the air nitrogen in the symbiosis with  Nostoc and Anabaena algae and with azotobacteria.

Coralloid roots in seedling

A large tree with divided trunk and female cones in both crowns