Encephalartos kisambo

From St. Georges Botanic Garden, St. Croix I present a plant labeled as Encephalartos kisambo.

This one is sometimes known as the "Voi cycad" as it grows on a number of hills in the Voi District of Southern Kenya. Its specific name "kisambo" stems from its name in the local Taita language. As you can probably tell from the above its a very neat structured looking cycad and popular with growers as a result. It'll put out up to 14 foot of stem crowned with 12 foot leaves and will clump nicely. Also its cones are a rather cool yellow colour. This one associates with open mist forest.

Speaking of cycads, I am currently (assuming this autoposted correctly and you're reading it on the day it posted) perusing a vast collection of the wonderful green shuttlecocks and will hopefully have some photos of some very interesting, some disturbingly quirky and some scarily rare species to share on my return. There may also be some herps, big and small, expected or unexpected and, if I'm very, very, lucky possibly even shark #30. Meanwhile next week will be autoposted and will be Venezuelan Raptor Week 2. There are 6 awesome species to come and I'm currently deliberating over which one gets bumped.