Encephalartos lanatus frost-bitten leaves

These young leaves of Encephalartos lanatus growing in the Pretoria National Botanical Garden show what appears to be frost damage. Maybe the sheltered kloofs of its natural habitat around the Olifants River in Mpumalanga are free from such challenges.

The woolly covering and the twist of the leaflets that position their margins away from each other like open louvre windows are still to be seen. The V-formation of leaflets folding in upon the rachis is pronounced. The rachises are thick and woolly, much twisted in their upper parts (Coates Palgrave, 2002).