Encephalartos humilis leaves

The curved and often twisted leaves of Encephalartos humilis have green to pale yellow rachises. The leaf is keeled as the leaflets turn up slightly from the rachis. Leaves become 30 cm to 50 cm long. Young leaves have woolly coverings of their rachises, while lower leaf parts are generally woolly (lanate), the leaf tips not.

The leaflet shape is linear, long and narrow. Leaflet size (of median leaflets) is about 1,1 cm long and 5 mm wide. The leaflets are soft, blue-green in colour, slightly shiny and without any marginal spines or teeth. The leaflets don’t overlap. There are about ten longitudinal vein lines visible upon the lower surface of a mid-sized leaflet.

Leaflets near the base of the leaf are flat, nearer the leaf tip they are twisted or inflexed and curve down in an untidy appearance. The lowest leaflets above the petiole are not reduced to prickles in this species (Hugo, 2014; iNaturalist; http://www.wild-about-you.com; www.arkive.org).