gratus-fying leaf detail

This was going to be a post about Palm Sunday and religious use of cycads of the genera Dioon and Cycas but then I realised Palm Sunday was last sunday. D'oh! This Encephalartos gratus had flushed a new leaf perfectly aligned with an existing one. The two had become entwined near the tip and the result was this rather spectacular symetrical double leaf.

This shot shows E. gratus' simple straight and relatively unspikey leaflets.

The tips themselves are still quite sharp though.