Cycas pruinosa is a small to medium species of cycad

Cycad

Cycads are seed plants typically characterized by a stout and woody trunk with a crown of large, hard and stiff, evergreen leaves. They usually have pinnate leaves. The individual plants are either all male or all female . Cycads vary in size from having a trunk that is only a few centimeters...

. It is a widespread but sporadic species in the eastern and southern Kimberley region of Western Australia

Western Australia

Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...

, occurring also in the Spirit Hills on Bullo River station in the Northern Territory

Northern Territory

The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, occupying much of the centre of the mainland continent, as well as the central northern regions...

.

This species is distinguished by its narrow glabrous leaf

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

lets with strongly recurved margins; its long, slender microsporangiate cones; and its long megasporophylls with long, sterile apices. It has a stout, erect trunk, around 2.5 m tall and 30 cm diameter, which is crowned with arching frond

Frond

The term frond refers to a large, divided leaf. In both common usage and botanical nomenclature, the leaves of ferns are referred to as fronds and some botanists restrict the term to this group...

s, distinctly curved from the apex and V-shaped in cross-section. Glaucous leaf wax

Wax

thumb|right|[[Cetyl palmitate]], a typical wax ester.Wax refers to a class of chemical compounds that are plastic near ambient temperatures. Characteristically, they melt above 45 °C to give a low viscosity liquid. Waxes are insoluble in water but soluble in organic, nonpolar solvents...

es may be either present or absent, causing plants to be either blue or green in overall appearance. It is suited to tropical

Tropics

The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately  N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at  S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...

 regions which have a seasonally dry climate.

This strikingly distinctive and widespread species was only first recognised in 1978 by Australian botanist John Maconochie. The specific name, pruinosa, means "covered with powder" and aptly describes the blue-white ovule

Ovule

Ovule means "small egg". In seed plants, the ovule is the structure that gives rise to and contains the female reproductive cells. It consists of three parts: The integument forming its outer layer, the nucellus , and the megaspore-derived female gametophyte in its center...

s of this plant.