We described them from the Permian of China  (Review of PalaeobotdnJ dnd PalrnolngJ,60 (1989): 205 22) but as regards their ancestral group  ?????

Here are some references that may be of help

Until the Triassic Cycads remained relatively uncommon on a global scale, it is during the Middle Triassic that they really became a dominant or important part of most terrestrial ecosystems.

It all depends on what you mean by a cycad!  The thing that Taylor described back in 1969 is I think no longer regarded as a true cycad. The Permian Chinese fossils Barry Thomas described certainly look cycad. These are pre-dated by Taeniopteris-like leaves from the uppermost Carboniferous of Europe, but no one has studied their cuticles - one is now referred to the fossil-genus Ilfeldia but I am not sure if that is convincingly cycad. The link with the Medullosales seems to be widely accepted based on a few charaxcters such as the girdling traces in the ovules, but the rest of the plant (especially the foliage) must have looked very different.

Dear Paul,

The true cycads, included in the order Cycadales( which have representation in extant floras) , and the Bennettitales ( restricted to the Mesozoic ) are components of an informal group, the cycadophytes. The Cycadales, which are still represented in extant floras have been vinculated to Paleozoic medullosaceae ( Pteridosperms ) and are believed to exist as a group from the early Permian ( Gao and Thomas 1989).

The Bennettitales present a wide range of morphological and structural

features and its evolutionary process is still in discussion (sometimes included in the flowering plants).

References:

Nixon et al., 1994;

Brenner et al., 2003

Doyle, 2006.

Stockey and Rothwell, 2003.