Protea rubropilosa Beard

A gnarled shrub or small tree i-5 m in height, occasionally to 8 m. Trunk and branches stout and massive with brown to black bark, peeling off in flakes. Flowering stems stout, 1-1.5 cm in diameter, glabrous; bark 3-5 mm thick, reddish-brown. Leaves elliptic-oblanceolate to broadly elliptic-oblanceolate, obtuse or acute, sessile but narrowing towards base; 12-22 cm long, 3-6.5 cm wide, glabrous, coriaceous; midrib stout and prominent, reddish-maroon. Inflorescence terminal, solitary, 7-9 cm in diameter; oblong in bud-the bracts opening to form a shallow saucer with perianths and styles everted. Receptacle convex, conic-depressed, 1.5-2 cm wide, 1 cm high. Involucral bracts 5-7 seriate; outer series ovate, acute, 1-1.5 cm long, 1 cm wide; inner series oblong, obtuse, 5 cm long, 1 cm wide; densely velutinous with a thick brown ferruginous indumentum, margins thickly fimbriate. Perianth 5-8 cm long; tube 1.8 cm long, glabrous; claws filiform, broadening proximally, glabrous except for pubescent margins on inner surface of adaxial sheath; limbs straight, 2-2.5 cm long, villous with a white indumentum except on median adaxial surface; apex acuminate, crinite. Style 6-7 cm long slightly adaxially arcuate. Pollen presenter filiform, 1.5 cm long, minutely geniculate proximally, flattened in vertical plane. Ovary 5 mm long, trichomes tawny. Hypogynous scales ovate, obtuse, 1 mm long.