China (Peoples Republic) 1996 Cycads

• Issue date: 2nd May 1996
• four values
• Designed by: Zhen Ziolian
• Printed by:
• stamp format height 40mm x width 30mm
• Print process: lithography, in sheets of 50
• Perforations: 12 x 12

Cycads

Sheet stamps

20f

20f

50f

230f

First Day Cover

information

Pollinated by wind, the dioecious cycads usually grow very slowly, and can be used as greenhouse ornaments. Some varieties, however, can grow outside the greenhouse. Honored as "the grand panda in the plant kingdom", the cycad is regarded by international botanists as playing a significant role in the research of the origin and evolution of seed plants, and also the research of the vicissitudes of ancient geology and climate. The natural extinction process of the plant speeding up, people begin to take cycad as the key research and protection object.

The starch in the stems of some varieties of cycad is edible after eliminating alkaloid by cooking. The tender leaves and seeds of some cycads are also edible.

There are wild cycads scattering in the eight provinces and autonomous regions in southern China, an important cycad distribution center in the world. They include 15 varieties, all of them are of cycadaceae. On May 1 to 5, 1996, the fourth International Cycad Biology Conference was held in Panzhihua City, in southwestern Sichuan Province