[bali]

if it's a male dioecious plant, then it has X & Y chromosomes (like dates), so you could theoretically clone a female friend for him :)

[mhurron]

There are more sex chromosomes in the world than just X and Y. It may not be so simple.

[bali]

Very true sir in a small fraction of cases, see http://www.umsl.edu/~renners/Ming_etal_Sex_chromosomes_2011.... (well, if you wanted to be precise, you could have said "there are more sex determination systems in the world than just XX/XY", since these letters only make sense when it comes to comparing different systems, sex loci relate to one chromosome within the same species)

In this particular case however, it's not true, Cycads are in the XY/XX system, see http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/content/26/2/261

So we may proceed and clone those females :)

[whyenot]

There is actually a project to do something similar using conventional breeding. E. woodsii hybridizes with E. natalensis. If you back-cross hybrid offspring with E. woodsii again and again, with each generation you will have plants that are genetically closer and closer to the E. woodsii parent while still having female plants.