CONSERVATION STATUS:
- Critically endangered.
CULTIVATION:
- Full sun.
- Can sustain drought but does well with regular watering and good drainage.
- Frost hardy.
PROPAGATION:
- Grows relatively slow.
- Readily propagated from seed and suckers.
NATURAL HABITAT:
- Eastern Cape Province in the Bushmans and Great Fish River valleys in the districts of Alexandria, Albany and Bathurst.
- It grows in dense shrub.
STEM:
- Erect, aerial stem that sometimes is reclining.
- Often produce multi-stemmed plants due to frequent producing of suckers.
- Stem can attain a length of 1.5 meters with a diameter of 25 cm – 35 cm.
LEAVES:
- Leaves are greyish green to blue-green and in some localities, different shades of green.
- Leaves have a slightly lighter colour on the lower side.
- Leaves curve gradually downwards and inward at the leaf apex.
- Leaves are stiff with a length of 70 – 130 cm.
- Leaflets shield one another only slightly but can become crowded at the apex.
- Leaflets have zero to two large pungent lobes on the lower margin.
- The lobes can be twisted to various degree out of the main leaflet plane.
- On the upper side the leaflets are concave transversely.
