Encephalartos friderici-guilielmi

Encephalartos friderici-guilielmi, the white-haired cycad, grows stout stems up to 60 cm thick and 4 m tall (SA Tree List No. 4). The plant, a strong grower, may develop multiple stems from suckering; up to six of them may be seen clumped together. Some of the tall ones eventually may keel over gradually, continuing to grow even while flat on the ground.

This cycad grows multiple fruit and pollen cones on female and male plants respectively, densely woolly and pale yellow in colour. The narrower male cones appear in clusters of up to twelve, the broader female ones up to about half that number. This is the Encephalartos species that grows the largest number of cones. The seeds released from ripe cones are yellow to orange.

The species distribution is Eastern Cape in the Cathcart, Queenstown and Kokstad region, as well as in the far south of KwaZulu-Natal.

The habitat is montane grassland and open shrubland among rocks, at elevations from 700 to 1,400 where it is adapted to survive summer grass fires and winter frost and snow. The habitat population is considered near threatened early in the twenty first century, due to collection by gardeners and traditional healers or their suppliers.

The species resembles E. cycadifolius that is a suffrutex with underground stem found inland in the Eastern Cape (Hugo, 2014; Coates Palgrave, 2002; www.plantzafrica.com; http://www.iucnredlist.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).