Kaapsehoop cycad
Encephalartos laevifolius — the Kaapsehoop cycad
Encephalartos laevifolius grows in the mist belt around Kaapsehoop and Barberton in Mpumalanga and across into Eswatini, on grassy slopes that are cold, wet and windy for much of the year. Its leaflets are smooth-edged — laevifolius means 'smooth-leaved' — and blue-green.
About Encephalartos laevifolius
Wild populations have fallen sharply, partly through collecting and partly because commercial forestry and changed fire regimes have swallowed the grassland it needs. Several once-substantial colonies are now down to a handful of plants.
For growers in cool, high-rainfall areas it is a rewarding species: tidy, upright and tolerant of cold and mist. It is much less happy in hot, dry lowveld gardens.
How to identify it
- Leaflets narrow, smooth-margined, without teeth or spines.
- Blue-green foliage held stiffly upright in a neat crown.
- Slender trunk to several metres, sometimes clumping.
- New flush emerges with light wool that soon wears away.
What drives the price
- Trunk height and clump formation.
- Neatness and colour of the crown.
- Suitability to cool, high-rainfall gardens.
- Verified identity and full permit documentation.
Collector-priced given its critically endangered status, though seed-grown small plants are periodically available from specialist nurseries at reasonable prices.
Permits and paperwork
Critically endangered and fully protected. Possession and selling permits are mandatory and checked before publication of any listing.
Read the cycad sale rulesGrowing it
Cool, bright, moist but very well drained. It tolerates frost and mist, and struggles in hot dry heat. Water through summer, ease off in winter without letting it bake dry.
E. laevifolius questions buyers ask
Buy E. laevifolius with the identification proven
Independent experts confirm the species, measurements and condition before a plant is marked verified, and every verified plant carries a Cycad Certificate recording its identity and each change of ownership.
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