Plant decumbent, suckering from the base. Trunk decumbent, up to 3.5 or rarely 4.2 m long and 350-400 mm in diameter, leaf bases persistent, with a golden, densely tomentose crown, turning greyish with age. Leaves numerous in a dense crown, subsessile, apex recurved, rigid, glaucous, 1.1-1.2(-1.4) m long, petiole bulbous basally, up to 130 mm long, tomentose, rachis tomentose, becoming subglabrous with age, pinnae entire, inflexed and directed towards the apex of the frond at an angle of ca. 50° to the rachis, opposing leaflets set at an angle of ca. 40° to each other, incubously overlapping, proximal leaflets gradually reduced but not to a series of spines, median leaflets 130-170 mm long and 20-24 mm wide, narrowly elliptic and falcate, gradually acuminate and pungent apically, decurrent basally on the rachis, apices somewhat turned towards the frond apex. Strobili dimorphous, glabrous, scale facets smooth, waxy bluish-green, microsporangiate strobili 5 per trunk, narrowly ovoid, 500 mm long and 90 mm in diameter, peduncle 120 mm long, median microsporophylls rhombic, ca. 29 mm wide, 30 mm long and 7 mm high, with the central facet flat or slightly concave, mega-sporangiate strobili 1-3 per trunk, ovoid, 400 mm long and 350 mm in diameter, appearing sessile but with peduncle up to 60 mm long, hidden amongst cataphylls in the trunk crown, median megasporophylls rhombic, with four lateral and one central facet, ca. 50 mm wide, 44 mm long and 15 mm high with central facet a third of the horizontal diameter of the bulla. Seeds ca. 200 per cone, sarcotesta orange-red, kernel 30-35 mm long and 15-18 mm in diameter, ellipsoid, round and smooth.
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