Plants branched form the base; trunks erect or ascending, sometimes becoming procumbent with age, up to about 2.25 m tall, 25-35 cm diam.; bracteate leaves linear-lanceolate, very densely woolly with long brown hairs, tips recurving and becoming dry and brittle. Leaves with long brownish woolly hairs when young, gradually glabrescent except pulvinus, oblong-lanceolate in outline, 100-130 cm long, 15-20 cm broad, slightly contracted to apex and base; rhachis somewhat twisted; petiole about 20 cm long; leaflets (pinnae) slightly spaced towards base, denser above, sometimes slightly overlapping; upper ones slightly curved towards apex; basal ones not reduced to prickles but 1 or 2 sometimes lobed and somewhat prickle-like; margin entire, except very rarely with 1 or 2 prickles in juvenile forms; median leaflets fairly widely spreading or reflexed from the rhachis, oblong-lanceolate, 12-15 cm long, about 1.5 cm broad, becoming rigid, undersurface drying with 20-30 prominent nerves. Cones single, sometimes terminal, usually lateral to the terminal leaf-whorl, densely shaggy brown woolly, rarely glabrescent, yellowish, male and female alike in general shape, but male much lighter in mass per unit volume than female. Male cones pedunculate; peduncles 8-9 cm long, 2.5-3.5 cm diam. below cone, tapered to base, velvety woolly, without stipules except subtending ones; cones subcylindric, 27-30 cm long, 15-17 cm diam., broadest slightly below the middle and narrowed slightly to apex and broadly rounded base, shaggy woolly with brown hair about 1 cm long, with only the uppermost weathered scale-faces slightly exposed; scale-faces smallest towards apex; median scales spreading more or less horizontally, 6.5-7 cm long, 5.5-6 cm broad at the shoulder, cuneately narrowed to base, shortly stalked; stalk about 1 cm long; limb glabrous, 4-6 mm thick, with sterile margin 3-4 mm wide; bulla 1.3-1.5 cm long, subcylindric, about 2.5 cm thick vertically, abruptly expanded into lateral wings, densely woolly, verrucose; upper facet humped and apparently more or less rounded, 1 cm higher than sporangial spine; lower facet rounded; terminal facet not clearly defined, flattish, verrucose, about 1.75 cm broad and 1.5 cm wide vertically. Female cones pedunculate; peduncles obconic, 5-6 cm long, 4 cm diam. at top, velvety woolly; cones broadly ovate, 23-30 cm long, 17-18 cm broad, shaggy woolly as with male cones; median scales 6-6.5 cm long, 5-5.5 cm broad at the shoulders, 2.5-3 cm thick vertically, with incurved toothed lateral lobes 5-10 mm long; bulla 2.5 cm long, about 2.5 cm thick vertically, abruptly expanded into lateral wings, shaggy woolly, verrucose; upper facet humped with 1 or 2 ridges; lower facet rounded; terminal facet 2-2.5 cm broad, 1.7-2.0 cm wide vertically; seeds angled by compression 3.75-4 cm long with fleshy beak (immature).
More
Mature plants with 1-5 stems, often fire-blackened. Stems 2.5 m high, 250-350 mm in diameter. Dead rhachises forming a long-lasting skirt in absence of fire. Leaves dark green, 1.0-1.3 m. Median leaflets 120-150 x 15 mm, usually with entire, toothless margins, veins on undersurface prominently raised. Petiole 250-290 mm long, covered with brown hairs.
Home