Encephalartos horridus Lehm.

Plant unbranched or more usually branched from the base with stems subterranean or partly exposed, up to about 30 cm tall, exceptionally up to 1 m tall, 20-30 cm diam., the crown with a small quantity of loose wool. Leaves several to many in a whorl, rigid, glaucous, glabrous, 0.5-1 m long including petiole up to about 13 cm long; rhachis much recurved in the apical third, with brown woolly pulvinus; leaflets rather widely spaced in lower half of leaf, closer in the upper half, reduced in size and entire towards base; median leaflets ovate to lanceolate in general outline, up to 10 cm long and 2.5 cm broad with pungent apex and 1-3 pungent lobes up to 4 cm prominent on lower margin and twisted out of the plane of the leaflet; nervation obscure. Cones solitary on short stout peduncles, with blackish or reddish-brown adpressed scurfy hairs over green surface. Male cones subcylindric narrowing gradually to base and apex, 20-40 cm long, 6-12 cm diam.; median scales broadly ovate, 3-4 cm long and 3-3.5 cm broad, with acute lateral ridges; bulla face projecting 8-10 mm beyond sporangial surface, smooth or slightly corrugated, upper facet humped and sometimes with obscure ridges, terminal facet concave, smooth, about 8 mm broad and 6 mm wide vertically. Female cones ovate-oblong to oblong-elliptic in outline, 20-40 cm long, 15-20 cm diam., rarely smaller; median scales 4-5-6 cm long, 4-5 cm broad and 3-3.5 cm thick vertically, with lateral ridges extending into the incurved lateral lobes about 1 cm long; bulla face protruding 1.5-2 cm, rugose round base, upper facet with 1-2 or more ridges converging to the terminal facet otherwise fairly smooth, lower facet slightly protuberant, somewhat rugose, terminal facet more or less quadrangular, 1.5-2 cm broad, concave with slightly uneven surface and a narrow raised rim. Seed pale red or carmine, 3-3.5 cm long and about 2.5 cm diam., angled by compression, with fleshy beak.

It is a subtropical plant.

The stems are used to make a meal and as yeast.