Encephalartos afer

Encephalartos afer, commonly known as the dwarf cycad and in Afrikaans as the broodboom (bread tree), a name shared with other South African cycads and previously scientifically as E. caffer, is a small plant growing a single stem, always with a woolly (stem) crown. The plant was too small to receive a number in the SA Tree List. Stem branching is sometimes induced by damage to the crown. With leaves and all the plant reaches a height of about 1,2 m, although there is much more of the stem hidden underground than above.

The species distribution is in the Eastern Cape from Humansdorp in discrete subpopulations to Oribi Gorge in KwaZulu-Natal. This is said to be the furthest south in Africa that any cycad occurs naturally.

The habitat is sour, rocky grassland, Albany thicket, coastal scrub and often among rocks, receiving high to medium (summer) rainfall. The plants are frost averse but survives winter grass fires. The habitat population is deemed near threatened early in the twenty first century, due to agriculture and plant collection.

There is a related or similar plant further to the north in KwaZulu-Natal, E. ngoyanus that differs in having toothed leaves (Hugo, 2014; www.cycadsociety.org; www.cycad.org; www.plantzafrica.com; http://redlist.sanbi.org).