Encephalartos longifolius new leaves

This Encephalartos longifolius stem-tip has sprouted a brand-new batch of leaves from its centre. The closely cohering new leaves are more brown than green at this stage, their rachises already sturdy, while the leaflets are thin, soft-looking and curving.

The sturdy, smooth yellow-green petioles of the old leaves around the new growth are slightly angular, also angling up and outwards, away from the centre of the stem-tip. The lowermost leaflets on a mature leaf appear far from the stem and small, often only prickles. While the old petioles and rachises are green, the old leaflets in picture are bluish and glossy.

The bare whitish strip of cataphylls on the stem-tip surface between the new inner and the old outer leaves indicate a discontinuity in time between the growth of the two groups of leaves. The sparse scattering of thread-like or thread-tipped cataphylls on the stem-tip are more like coarse hairs or thin, soft spines than like a form of leaves (Hugo, 2014; Coates Palgrave, 2002).