Encephalartos middelburgensis Vorster, Robbertse & S.van Der Westh.

Plant arborescent, unbranched but often suckering from base. Stem erect or procumbent with age, up to 6 m long and 250-400 mm in diameter. Fronds 1100-1500 mm long, glaucous, straight, rigid, with well-developed trigonous and unarmed petiole 100-200 mm long; leaflets directed towards apex of frond at angle of 45° or less with rachis, opposing leaflets set at angle of less than 45° to each other (i.e. almost folded together), basal leaflets spaced 25-50 mm apart and not overlapping, reduced in size towards base of frond to form entire spines, median leaflets slightly succubously overlapping or not at all, 180-190 mm long and 14-19 mm wide, very narrowly elliptic, very slightly S-shaped and falcate in plane view, tapering to both ends, apices oblique and pungent, margins unarmed (or rarely in young plants with one or two prickles on upper and/ or lower margin, cf. Mogg 23933). Cones dimorphous, superficially glabrous but sometimes with sparse, short, fine, reddish-brown indumentum in places, bright green except for localized reddish-brown overlay of indumentum; male cones 5-8 per stem, narrowly ovoid, 300-350 mm long and 85-120 mm wide, on a peduncle 50-170 mm long, median scale faces ca. 25 mm wide by 15 mm high and drawn out into drooping lips; female cones 4-5(-8) per stem, shortly cylindrical, 350-450 mm long and 170-200 mm wide, apparently sessile but with peduncles of up to 150 mm long buried amongst cataphylls in stem crown, median scale faces hexagonal, 60-75 mm wide and 35-45 mm high, with the central facet about half the horizontal diameter of scale, superficially smooth but lateral facets finely, unevenly and indistinctly wrinkled with ridges radiating from central facet.