CONSERVATION STATUS:
- Threatened.
CULTIVATION:
- Light shade to full sun.
- Regular watering with good drainage.
- Frost tolerant.
PROPAGATION:
- Readily propagated from seed and suckers.
NATURAL HABITAT:
- Eastern Cape Province on slopes of a couple of mountains: Great Winterhoek-, Suurberg mountains in the Humansdorp-, Uitenhage- and Somerset-East districts where it also occurs in short grassveld.
STEM:
- Aerial, erect stem with a length of up to 5 meters with a diameter of 30 cm – 45 cm.
- Stem apex is covered with short hairless cataphylls.
LEAVES:
- Leaves are dark glossy green on the upper side, although plants from the Joubertina area have bluish-green leaves.
- The underside of the leaflets is a paler green.
- The leaves are rigid with the distal leaf sometimes curving downwards.
- The rachis is typically yellowish-green.
- Leafbases have a yellow-brown collar.
- Leaflet margins are usually entire with a pungent apex.
- Some localities have blunt leaflet apices, and some have 2 – 3 teeth that can be blunt or pungent.
- Leaflets shield one another
