Protea comptonii Beard

Tree 4-8 m in height, more rarely a large shrub; crown rounded, highly divaricate, open; trunk up to 500 mm in diam. Bark grey, 200 mm thick, longitudinally fissured. Flowering stems stout 10-20 mm thick, glabrous, bark golden. Leaves crowded on current year's growth; sessile, oblong, oblanceolate or broadly elliptic, occasionally subfalcate, 120-250 mm long, 25-50 mm wide, apex obtuse; glabrous, deep green, thick and very heavily coriaceous, midrib prominent proximally, midrib and margins red. Inflorescence sessile, 80-120 mm in diam., oval in bud, the involucral bracts opening through 90 degrees, becoming widely splayed to form a saucer; floral parts everted at anthesis. Involucral receptacle conic acute, 20-30 mm in diam., 20 mm long. Involucral bracts 5-7 seriate, greenish-white, glabrous (outermost series near junction with stem very occasionally minutely sericeous); outer series very broadly deltate, 15 mm long, 15-20 mm wide, tightly imbricate, margins ciliate; inner series oblong-spathulate, 50-60 mm long, 10-20 mm wide, apices concave, obtuse to rounded, loosely spreading. Perianth white, 65-70 mm long, adaxially curved; tube 15 mm long, prominently ridged, broadly dilated, 8-10 mm wide, glabrous externally and internally but inner margins of the distal lips sericeous, sharply constricted to form claws; claws slender, glabrous externally and internally; limbs straight, 25 mm long, thickly villous, apices sharply acuminate. Anthers 4, filiform, sessile. Style white, 65-80 mm long, adaxially curved. Pollen presenter filiform, straight, 10 mm long, geniculate at junction with style. Ovary obconic 5 mm long covered with straight tawny to white trichomes. Hypogynous scales 2.5 mm long, narrowly ovate. Flowering takes place between May and July but odd flowers can be found up to the end of September.