Several fossils from the Late Permian resemble male cycad cones, with twin spines on the cone scales like Macrozamia. Certainly, the male cone of Beania is very similar in appearance to modern cycad cones, even if the female cone is very open and elongated. If these fossils are truly of cycad cones, and not the fossilized impressions of club moss stems, they suggest that cycad structures were evolving at different rates. Although leaves initially remained primitive, reproductive structures were adopting more modern and efficient structural designs. The chart on the previous page shows a possible evolutionary sequence of cycad megasporophylls from a generalized Crosszamia cone axis design. Crosszamia fossils discovered in China, France and Sweden have many basic similarities, and yet are variable enough in construction as to have been the precursors to both the Cycas and Zamia female cone.

Modern cycads are today very dependent on specific insects to pollinate their cones, and there is no reason to believe this was not also the case in the past. There may have even been coevolution of the seed-bearing structures and their pollinators. Cycad cones signal that they are ready to release pollen, or to be pollinated, by broadcasting attractive odors, as well as distinctive heat signatures for insects capable of sensing infrared radiation. Cone shapes were probably driven by how well they attracted and allowed access to specific pollinating insects.

Afterwards, the cone had to close and become a protective shield for the developing seeds. Once mature, the cone had yet another function, to attract yet more co-agents, animals drawn by the fleshy seed coverings that would strip off this inhibiting coating and then transport the seeds away from the parent plant so that they might find an appropriate spot to germinate. Over the millions of years that cycads have existed, these co-agents could have been insects, dinosaurs, pterosaurs, birds, various mammals, perhaps even fruit bats, who would find the open cone of Cycas an especially easy target.

Bjuvia simplex, a cycadale with a simple leaf pattern that continued to reflect the simple taeniopterid- type leaf well into the Triassic Period.