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Plant with massive aerial trunk, mostly 2-5 m high and 30-70 cm in diameter. Young leaves bright green. Mature leaves to 150 in a rounded crown, 1.5-3 m by 30-60 cm, dark bluish green, flat in cross section, arching to gracefully curved in profile; petiole 5-10 cm long, swollen and wooly at the base; rhachis not twisted, yellowish, concave above, keeled beneath; leaflets 150-250, moderately crowded, evenly distributed throughout, inserted on the rhachis at about 40°, with stomata on both surfaces, pungent-tipped, ca. 40 of the lowest leaflets progressively reduced to a series of rigid, spine-like processes extending almost to the base of the rachis (spine-free petiole 0-10 cm long); median leaflets 20-40 cm by 5-11 mm, linear, dark bluish green, tapered to a pungent apex, contracted to a white, callous base. Cones markedly dissimilar. Male cones 25-45 cm by 8-10 cm, cylindical, green to brownish, straight or more usually curved, up to 100 on a large plant; sporophylls 2-3 cm by 1.5-2 cm, wedge-shaped, with an erect, apical spine-like appendage 2-20 mm long; peduncle 10-15 cm by 2-3 cm. Female cones 40-90 cm by 12-20 cm, broadly cylindical to barrel-shaped, green, one to eight on each plant; sporophylls 5-10 cm by 4-8 cm, broadly wedge-shaped, expanded near the apex, apical spine-like appendage 2-7 cm long; peduncle 15-25 cm by 3-4 cm, stout. Seeds 4-6 cm by 2.5-3.5 cm, oblong, red to scarlet when ripe (Harden 1990, Jones 1993).
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