Description :

• Shrubs or small trees, erect, procumbent, or caespitose and apparently acaulescent
• Leaves alternate, acicular to oval, sessile or petiolate, glabrous to pubescent
• Inflorescence a capitulum, terminal and solitary, but in certain caespitose species, axillary and clustered, subtended by a prominent involucre of variously coloured bracts; basal bracts scale-like, becoming progressively larger, glabrous or pubescent, often thickly bearded at apices; receptacle flat, convex or concave
• Flowers bisexual, irregular
• Perianth adaxially curved in bud; perianth segments 4, 3 adaxial ones fused to form a distinct sheath; abaxial segment separating completely from adaxial sheath; claws slender to filiform, enlarging proximally, glabrous or pubescent, occasionally pubescent on inner surface; limbs elliptic, narrowly oblong or linear, acute to attenuate, glabrous to markedly crinite
• Anthers sessile to subsessile, arising from base of perianth limbs, linear to filiform, acuminate; abaxial anther sometimes reduced to a staminode
• Ovary obconic, covered with long, straight hairs, with 1 ovule; style straight to adaxially curved, tapering subterminally, glabrous or pubescent, persistent; pollen presenter filiform, linear or capitate, longitudinally grooved
• Hypogynous scales 4, ovate to lanceolate or linear, acuminate or retuse
• Fruit an obconic achene, densely pubescent, with long, straight hairs, brown, ferruginous, black or white
• x = 12

Nomenclature:

• Protea L.
  • Linnaeus: 187, 328 (1771)
  • Stapf et al.: 552 (1912)
  • Beard: 138 (1963)
  • Rourke: 1 (1980)
  • Chisumpa & Brummitt: 815 (1987)
  • Beard: 1 (1993)
  • Brummitt & Marner: 1 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 112, Africa
• Southern Africa : Species ± 83 in South Africa, mainly Western Cape and usually at higher altitudes elsewhere