Encephalartos afer

Encephalartos afer, long known as Encephalartos caffer, is a dwarf cycad from South Africa, confined to the coastal belt of the Eastern Cape, where it grows in grassland, often among rocks. This species of the genus Encephalartos was one of the first two Encephalartos collected in southern Africa, in 1772. Its stem stays almost entirely underground and the whole plant, leaves included, rarely exceeds 1.2 m. If you are looking for Encephalartos caffer, this is the same plant: since the International Botanical Congress held in Madrid in July 2024, the epithet caffer has to be spelt afer, for a reason explained under Taxonomy. The IUCN lists the species as Near Threatened.

Key facts about Encephalartos afer

  • Accepted name: Encephalartos afer (Thunb.) Lehm. (1834), according to The World List of Cycads and IPNI
  • Former names and synonyms: Encephalartos caffer (former spelling, corrected in 2024); Cycas caffra and Zamia caffra (original spellings of Cycas afra and Zamia afra); Zamia cycadis, Encephalartos brachyphyllus, Encephalartos verschaffeltii
  • Family: Zamiaceae, order Cycadales
  • Common names: Eastern Cape dwarf cycad (Species+); Grahamstown cycad and Rhini cycad (PlantZAfrica)
  • Natural range: South Africa, coastal belt of the Eastern Cape, from the Humansdorp and Uitenhage districts to Kentani and Willowvale
  • IUCN status: Near Threatened (NT, criteria A2cd; B2ab(iii,v)), assessment by J.D. Bösenberg dated 27 May 2020 and published in 2022
  • CITES and other protection: CITES Appendix I since 1977, like the whole genus; Annex A in the European Union
  • Documented hardiness: no measured value; described as sensitive to frost (see Cold hardiness)
  • Light and soil: in the wild, sunny acid grassland (sour grassveld), often among rocks; in cultivation, full sun on the coast and an open, free-draining soil
  • Habit and adult size: underground stem up to about 30 cm long (35 to 40 cm according to PlantZAfrica) and 15 to 25 cm in diameter; leaves 40 to 90 cm long
  • In the UK, US and Australia: declared to BGCI by Edinburgh and Glasgow in the United Kingdom, by the Huntington, Lotusland, the San Diego Zoo, UC Berkeley and others in the United States, and by Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria in Australia
  • Toxicity: not studied for this species; a documented risk for the genus (see Toxicity and precautions)

How to recognise Encephalartos afer

It is recognised by its dwarf habit, its woolly crown sitting at ground level and its light green leaves with crowded leaflets, often twisted in all directions. The reference description remains that of R.A. Dyer in his revision of the cycads of southern Africa, published in Bothalia in 1965, completed here by PlantZAfrica:

  • Stem: almost always single, rarely branched, probably after an injury according to Dyer; underground, up to 30 cm long and 15 to 25 cm in diameter (350 to 400 mm by 250 mm according to PlantZAfrica), woolly at the apex; thick, tuberous roots;
  • Leaves: 40 to 90 cm long, erect, spreading, arching or slightly twisted, at first covered with brown wool that soon falls; leathery and light green according to PlantZAfrica, on a straight petiole;
  • Leaflets: crowded and sometimes irregularly twisted around the rachis, which gives the leaf a ruffled look; reduced towards the base of the leaf, sometimes to one or two prickles; the median ones about 10 cm long and 8 to 10 mm wide, almost always entire in adult plants;
  • Cones: solitary, subcylindrical, greenish yellow when mature; the male cone 20 to 30 cm long and 6 to 11 cm in diameter, narrowing towards the tip; the female cone about 30 cm by 15 cm; PlantZAfrica says that the cones appear in July;
  • Seeds: glossy scarlet, occasionally pale pinkish yellow (PlantZAfrica), up to 3.8 cm long and 2.3 cm in diameter.

Dyer adds a warning: in young plants the leaflets carry numerous teeth on their margins, which can be misleading; PlantZAfrica also notes a few marginal teeth on young leaflets.

Collectors distinguish forms by locality of origin. On the French Fous de palmiers forum, a collector whose location is not given mentioned in May 2016 a “ruffled” form from Humansdorp, distinct from the common form, and a grower in Belley (Ain) and Montpellier (Hérault), France, reported seedlings from Kentani that lack this look; on the Italian Tropicamente forum, a photo from 2013 is captioned “Humansdorp form”. These forms have no botanical rank.

Hybrids

No natural hybrid of Encephalartos afer is known. Dyer (1965) notes that in the Eastern Cape the species grows a few kilometres from Encephalartos altensteinii, Encephalartos trispinosus, Encephalartos arenarius and Encephalartos latifrons, species that hybridise with one another in places, but that “only the dwarf Encephalartos caffer appears not to participate in hybridisation”. In cultivation, Rousseau and colleagues (2015) cite unpublished data by Vorster reporting a cross with Encephalartos ferox, obtained with a very low yield.

Possible confusion

The historical confusion is with Encephalartos longifolius, a large trunk-forming species from the same Eastern Cape: Thunberg took the two for forms of a single plant (see Etymology and history). Today the most likely confusion is with Encephalartos ngoyanus, another dwarf species with an underground stem, which grows in KwaZulu-Natal, Eswatini and Mozambique. Inna Verdoorn separated it from Encephalartos caffer in 1949. According to her, and then to Dyer (1965), Encephalartos ngoyanus has a more slender petiole and rachis, less crowded leaflets that are neither twisted nor spread in several planes and often carry one to three teeth on the lower margin, and much thinner roots, whereas those of Encephalartos afer are very thick. PlantZAfrica, which considers the two species closely related, sums up the difference: leathery light green leaves and untoothed leaflets in Encephalartos afer, dark green, soft foliage and toothed leaflets in Encephalartos ngoyanus.

Dyer’s key also separates Encephalartos afer from Encephalartos villosus, another species with an underground stem, by its shorter leaflets (6 to 8 cm on average against 15 to 20 cm), usually entire, and by its range, limited to the coastal belt of the Eastern Cape.

Taxonomy

Encephalartos afer (Thunb.) Lehm. is the name accepted by The World List of Cycads and IPNI. The basionym is Cycas afra Thunb., published in 1775 in the Nova Acta Regiae Societatis Scientiarum Upsaliensis (2: 283–288, pl. 5). Thunberg himself moved the species to Zamia in 1800 (Zamia afra), and Johann Georg Christian Lehmann placed it in Encephalartos in 1834. According to IPNI, the combination appeared on 15 March 1834 in the Allgemeine Gartenzeitung (2: 86), then in April or early May 1834 in Lehmann’s Pugillus 6 (p. 14), often cited as the place of publication.

The World List of Cycads treats Zamia cycadis L.f. (1782), Encephalartos brachyphyllus Lehm. & de Vriese (1838), Encephalartos verschaffeltii Regel (1874) and two varieties described by Regel as synonyms; no infraspecific taxon is recognised.

Why caffer became afer

The change is purely one of spelling: the plant, its type and its circumscription have not changed. The original epithet, caffra and then caffer, was formed on a word once used for the Xhosa-speaking peoples of the region, which became a racist insult in southern Africa. In 2021 Gideon F. Smith and Estrela Figueiredo proposed in the journal Taxon a new Article 61.6 of the International Code of Nomenclature, to eliminate permanently and retroactively the epithets formed on the root “caf[f][e]r-”. The Nomenclature Section of the 20th International Botanical Congress adopted it in Madrid in July 2024, by 351 votes to 205 in a secret ballot, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

The text of the article, quoted by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), states that such epithets are no longer admissible and are to be treated as orthographical variants, corrected to the root “af[e]r-”: caffra becomes afra and caffer becomes afer. IPNI and The World List of Cycads now write Encephalartos afer, with the note “epithet spelling corrected according to Art. 61.6 ICN (Madrid)”. For readers, only the spelling changes: catalogues, old labels and the Species+ database, which still uses Encephalartos caffer in October 2026, all refer to the same species.

Etymology and history

Encephalartos comes from Greek and means “bread in the head”, a reference to the bread that people in southern Africa made from the starchy pith of the stems, hence also the Afrikaans name broodboom, “bread tree” (Dyer, 1965). According to Haynes (2022), followed by The World List of Cycads, the original epithet referred to Caffraria (Kaffraria), a former name for the eastern part of the Cape, or to the Xhosa people whom Europeans then called by that name, or to both; PlantZAfrica traces this colonial name back to an Arabic word meaning unbeliever. The corrected form afer is the Latin word for “African”.

The species was one of the first two Encephalartos found in southern Africa. According to Dyer (1965), the Swede Carl Peter Thunberg and the Kew collector Francis Masson were travelling in 1772 through the Langkloof towards Coega, north-east of Port Elizabeth, when Thunberg collected a trunk-forming species and a dwarf one. He took them for two forms of the same plant. Only much later was the name caffer kept for the dwarf species, while the trunk-forming one took the name Encephalartos longifolius; PlantZAfrica credits Hutchinson and Rattray with this separation. As late as 1878, the German botanist Paul Ascherson still described Encephalartos caffer (which he spelt cafer) as a plant “at least as tall as a man”, a sign that the confusion persisted.

Dyer illustrates the species with an old male plant grown in Grahamstown, later moved to the garden of the Botanical Research Institute in Pretoria.

Common names

No English name is in general use, but several are attested. Species+, the CITES database, gives Eastern Cape dwarf cycad; PlantZAfrica gives Grahamstown cycad and Rhini cycad, and the Nguni name uMphanga wase Rhini. PlantZAfrica also records an Afrikaans name built on the same root as the old epithet; it is not reproduced here, for the reason that led to the 2024 correction. The Afrikaans word broodboom applies to the genus as a whole.

In the wild

Encephalartos afer grows in the acid grassland (sour grassveld) of the coastal belt of the Eastern Cape. Dyer (1965) describes it as uncommon, from the Uitenhage district to around Willowvale, in the former Transkei; he considered a record from the Steytlerville district doubtful, perhaps due to plants received from that postal address. PlantZAfrica lists the districts of Humansdorp, Albany, Bathurst and East London, and Kentani in the former Transkei, as far east as Willowvale. The World List of Cycads limits its distribution to the Eastern Cape. A Californian nursery mentions an isolated population in KwaZulu-Natal; no botanical source read confirms it.

According to PlantZAfrica, the plant grows on rocky grassland slopes, often among rocks, and is well adapted to fire. It is sensitive to frost and adapted to hot summers, with up to 1000 mm of rain a year on the coast, but it survives further inland where rainfall is 750 mm or less. The IUCN action plan for cycads (Donaldson, 2003) estimated the population at about 10,000 plants, in slight decline, threatened by collecting and habitat destruction, with part of the populations in protected areas. No study specific to the species on pollination or seed dispersal is documented.

Conservation status and regulation

Encephalartos afer is listed as Near Threatened (NT) on the IUCN Red List. The assessment by J.D. Bösenberg, dated 27 May 2020 and published in 2022 under the name Encephalartos caffer, is the one cited by The World List of Cycads, with criteria A2cd and B2ab(iii,v): a past decline linked to habitat degradation and collecting, and a small, fragmented area of occupancy where habitat and the number of mature plants keep decreasing (author and date on Crossref, category on GBIF, consulted on 26 October 2026). The species was already Near Threatened in the 2003 action plan. PlantZAfrica describes it as rare, particularly in the western part of its range.

Like every species of the genus, it has been listed in CITES Appendix I since 4 February 1977, and in Annex A in the European Union (Regulation (EU) 2026/1383, applicable since 29 June 2026). Species+ still records it under the name Encephalartos caffer. For imports from South Africa of artificially propagated plants (source codes A and D), the EU Scientific Review Group issued in 2011 a positive opinion limited to plants whose caudex is no more than 7 cm in diameter; a new consultation covering the whole genus has been open since 16 September 2026. Databases consulted on 26 October 2026: check the regulations in force and always ask for proof that a plant comes from cultivation.

Growing Encephalartos afer

Encephalartos afer is a slow-growing collector’s plant for frost-free gardens or for containers kept frost-free in winter. According to PlantZAfrica, the species, rare in the wild, is easily grown from seed and grows well in a protected garden situation; it is relatively slow-growing and takes time to recover from relocation and transplanting.

Outdoor and in-ground cultivation

Jungle Music, a specialist nursery in Encinitas, on the coast of southern California, reports that the species tolerates full sun near the coast, needs protection in desert areas and requires an open, porous soil that drains well. At Kirstenbosch, in Cape Town, each plant receives every spring a nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium fertiliser in a 3:1:5 ratio, with bone meal and an organic fertiliser, and generous helpings of compost during the year (PlantZAfrica). No figures specific to the species are documented for watering or soil pH.

Container cultivation

Its underground stem and tuberous roots call for a deep pot and a very free-draining mix, watered during the growing season and kept almost dry in winter. These are general recommendations for grassland Encephalartos: no reliable source gives figures specific to this species. The species circulates in Europe mainly as young plants: on the Fous de palmiers forum, it appeared as early as March 2009 in a seller’s price list passed on by a member, a grower in Agen (Lot-et-Garonne), France, showed in 2009 a young plant raised under artificial lighting, and seedlings of the Kentani form were reported in 2016. In Italy, a grower in Ravenna (Emilia-Romagna) listed Encephalartos caffer on the Tropicamente forum in December 2010 among the dwarf Encephalartos with an underground trunk suitable for pot culture.

In cultivation in the UK, US and Australia

  • United Kingdom: the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh and Glasgow Botanic Gardens declare the species to BGCI under the name Encephalartos caffer; at Edinburgh, the public glasshouses are closed for restoration. No outdoor planting is documented.
  • United States: the Huntington (San Marino), the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley and the botanical garden of the University of Hawaii at Hilo declare it under the name Encephalartos afer; Ganna Walska Lotusland (Santa Barbara), the San Diego Zoo, Naples Botanical Garden (Florida) and Atlanta Botanical Garden under the name Encephalartos caffer (BGCI). The Encinitas nursery mentioned above grows it outdoors on the coast of southern California.
  • Australia: Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria (Melbourne Gardens) declares it to BGCI.

A listing in BGCI shows a declaration by the garden, not necessarily a living plant today. Elsewhere, the Naples botanic garden in Italy grew two plants of South African origin in 1993–1994 (Gaudio et al., 1997), and the Nong Nooch Tropical Botanical Garden in Thailand, which grows every species of the genus but one, observed in 2022 that many South African Encephalartos rarely cone in a tropical climate, for lack of a cool season, without naming this one.

Propagation

Propagation is by fresh, fertile seed. PlantZAfrica, which says that the species is easily grown from seed, describes the method used at Kirstenbosch: hand pollination is needed for a good seed harvest in cultivation; the pollen is collected as soon as the male cone sheds when tapped and stored at −15 °C (5 °F); the female cone is monitored, since its scales may stay open for three days to two weeks, and pollinated by the “wet” method (pollen mixed with distilled water and applied with a syringe), which gives a good pollination rate there. The seed is left to mature for a year after harvest, then sown at the beginning of summer in river sand on a heated bench at 24 to 28 °C (75 to 82 °F); germination starts after about three weeks, sometimes later. As the plant rarely branches, division is hardly possible. Seeds, like plants, fall under CITES Appendix I.

Pests and diseases

According to PlantZAfrica, leaves and cones are prone to scale insects and mealybugs. As with other Encephalartos, collar and root rot threaten plants grown in a mix that stays too wet.

Cold hardiness

No cold limit has been measured for Encephalartos afer: the only reliable information is qualitative. PlantZAfrica describes it as sensitive to frost and places it in South Africa’s frost-free coastal horticultural zones (summer or winter rainfall) and in the winter-rainfall Karoo and the bushveld with light frost. As with other Encephalartos, survivals in cold areas often concern young plants whose caudex is still underground, protected by the thermal inertia of the soil and sometimes by snow; nothing shows that this dwarf species benefits from it, and adult plants do not enjoy the same protection.

Mediterranean and European experience

No outdoor result is documented in France or Italy. The European reports cited above (Agen, Ravenna, Kentani seedlings) concern young plants grown in pots, without any cold value. Readers in climates comparable to the Mediterranean coast, coastal California or southern Australia should keep the plant frost-free and dry in winter until an outdoor trial is documented.

United Kingdom, United States and Australia

In coastal southern California, the Encinitas nursery grows the species in full sun. No dated cold report is documented for the United Kingdom or Australia, and no USDA hardiness zone is given for the species in a botanical source.

Toxicity and precautions

No toxicity data specific to Encephalartos afer is documented, but the risk is documented for the genus: Encephalartos are toxic, and their seeds particularly so. The toxicity of one species of the genus, Encephalartos horridus, was demonstrated as early as 1944 by Van der Walt. Cycads contain toxic glycosides (cycasin, macrozamin), from which methylazoxymethanol is derived, a compound that affects the liver, the digestive tract and the nervous system. For another cycad, the sago palm (Cycas revoluta), the ASPCA reports vomiting, black stools, jaundice, bleeding gastroenteritis, liver damage and deaths in dogs, cats and horses.

Wear gloves to handle the seeds and their fleshy coat, pick up fallen seeds and keep plants and seeds out of reach of children and pets. If any part is swallowed, contact a poison centre, a doctor or a vet without delay.

Traditional uses

No traditional use of Encephalartos afer is documented: PlantZAfrica states that there is no known recorded use, traditional or cultural. The bread made from the pith of cycad stems, reported for the genus (see Etymology and history), is not attested for this dwarf species.

Frequently asked questions

Are Encephalartos caffer and Encephalartos afer the same plant?

Yes. Only the spelling has changed: since Article 61.6 of the Code of Nomenclature was adopted at the Madrid congress in July 2024, the epithet caffer, formed on a word that became offensive, is written afer. The plant, its type and its range are unchanged. Catalogues and the Species+ database often still use the old name.

Is Encephalartos afer hardy?

No, not as far as anyone has measured: no survival temperature has been published, and PlantZAfrica describes the species as sensitive to frost. Grow it in a container kept frost-free and dry in winter wherever frost occurs.

How can it be told apart from Encephalartos ngoyanus?

By its leaflets and its range. Those of Encephalartos afer are crowded, often twisted and usually entire in adult plants, on light green, leathery leaves; those of Encephalartos ngoyanus are more widely spaced, flat and often toothed on the lower margin. The first grows in the Eastern Cape, the second in KwaZulu-Natal, Eswatini and Mozambique.

The leaflets of my young plant are toothed: is that normal?

Yes. Dyer (1965) explains that the leaflets of young plants carry numerous teeth, whereas those of adults are almost always entire and end in a point. This juvenile character can suggest another species.

Is it threatened in the wild?

Yes, moderately. The IUCN lists it as Near Threatened (assessment published in 2022). In 2003 the population was estimated at about 10,000 plants, in slight decline because of collecting and habitat destruction.

Is it easy to grow from seed?

Yes, according to PlantZAfrica, provided the seed is fertile: in cultivation, cones have to be hand-pollinated, and the seed is sown in sand on a heated bench, where it germinates in about three weeks.

Is it poisonous?

Yes, it should be treated as poisonous. No study deals with this species, but toxicity is demonstrated in the genus and cycad seeds contain cycasin. Keep seeds and plants out of reach of children and pets.

Further reading on Succulentes

Sources

Reference sites

Bibliography

  • Thunberg, C.P. (1775). Cycas afra. Nova Acta Regiae Societatis Scientiarum Upsaliensis 2: 283–288, pl. 5. [Basionym; cited by The World List of Cycads.]
  • Lehmann, J.G.C. (1834). Allgemeine Gartenzeitung 2(11): 86; also Novarum et minus cognitarum stirpium pugillus 6: 14. [Combination in Encephalartos; dates according to IPNI.]
  • Ascherson, P. (1878). Vorlage von mit Wolle eingeschleppten Pflanzen; Primula sisskimensis Hook.; und von afrikanischen Pflanzen von H. Soyaux und Dr. Pogge. Verhandlungen des Botanischen Vereins der Provinz Brandenburg 20: XXXV–XXXVI. https://archive.org/details/verhandlungendes1920bota [The species, spelt cafer, described as a tall plant.]
  • Verdoorn, I.C. (1949). Encephalartos ngoyanus. The Flowering Plants of Africa 27: pl. 1053–1054. https://archive.org/details/floweringplantso27unse [Separation of Encephalartos ngoyanus and its distinguishing characters.]
  • Dyer, R.A. (1965). Encephalartos. In: The cycads of southern Africa. Bothalia 8(4): 432–514. https://doi.org/10.4102/abc.v8i4.1858 [Description, key, distribution, discovery by Thunberg and Masson, absence of hybridisation, toothed juvenile leaflets.]
  • Gaudio, L. et al. (1997). Enzyme polymorphism in Encephalartos Lehmann (Zamiaceae). Delpinoa 35–36: 55–64. https://www.ortobotaniconapoli.it/images/Delpinoa/Delpinoa_n_s_35-36_1993-94_%5B1997%5D/Delpinoa_35-36_1993-94_%5B1997%5D_055-064.pdf [Two plants of South African origin grown in Naples.]
  • Donaldson, J.S. (ed.) (2003). Cycads. Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan. IUCN/SSC Cycad Specialist Group, Gland and Cambridge. [Near Threatened, about 10,000 plants, threats.]
  • Rousseau, P., Vorster, P.J., Afonso, A.V. & Van Wyk, A.E. (2015). Taxonomic notes on Encephalartos ferox (Cycadales: Zamiaceae), with the description of a new subspecies from Mozambique. Phytotaxa 204(2): 99–115. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.204.2.1 [Cultivated hybrid with Encephalartos ferox, after unpublished data by Vorster.]
  • Smith, G.F. & Figueiredo, E. (2021). (126) Proposal to add a new Article 61.6 to permanently and retroactively eliminate epithets with the root caf[e]r- or caff[e]r- from the nomenclature of algae, fungi and plants. Taxon 70(6): 1395–1396. https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.12622 [Proposal behind the correction; reference checked on Crossref.]
  • Smith, G.F. & Figueiredo, E. (2024). Permanently and retroactively eradicating certain offensive epithets from the scientific names of algae, fungi, and plants: ‘afr-’ is in. Anales del Jardín Botánico de Madrid 81(2): e154. https://doi.org/10.3989/ajbm.627 [Adoption of Article 61.6 in Madrid; reference checked on Crossref.]
  • Bösenberg, J.D. (2022). Encephalartos caffer. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2022: e.T41929A50825251. https://doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2022-1.RLTS.T41929A50825251.en [Current assessment (NT), dated 27 May 2020; cited by The World List of Cycads; author and date read on Crossref, category on GBIF.]
  • Lindstrom, A. (2022). The cycad collection at Nong Nooch Tropical Botanical Garden, Thailand. CYCADS 6(1): 5–9. IUCN/SSC Cycad Specialist Group. [Almost complete Encephalartos collection, rare coning of South African species in the tropics.]
  • Haynes, J.L. (2022). Etymological compendium of cycad names. Phytotaxa 550(1): 1–31. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.550.1.1 [Etymology of the epithet, via The World List of Cycads.]
  • Van der Walt, S.J. (1944). Recent investigations into the toxicity of plants, etc., in the Union of South Africa. Onderstepoort Journal of Veterinary Science and Animal Industry 20(1). [Toxicity of Encephalartos horridus; genus-level data.]
  • Calonje, M., Stevenson, D.W. & Osborne, R. (2026). The World List of Cycads, version 2026.08.15. Montgomery Botanical Center, Coral Gables. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21958524 [Reference checklist; consulted.]