Protea sulphurea E.Phillips

Low, very dense, spreading shrub with a single main stem and numerous horizontally radiating stems forming a solid mound of interlocking branches to 0.5 m high, up to 7 m in diam., bearing inflorescences at perimeter. Flowering stems glabrous, glaucous, often flushed with pink, 5 mm in diam., with numerous secund to subsecund shoots. Leaves elliptic, linear spathulate or narrowly oblanceolate, 20-65 mm long, 5-12 mm wide, dull green to glaucous, apices acute with a small black point. Inflorescences pendulous, spherical in bud, shallowly crateriform at anthesis, 90-130 mm in diam. Involucral receptacle very prominent, conic acute, 30 mm wide, 25-30 mm high. Involucral bracts glabrous, 6-7 seriate; outer series tightly imbricate, ovate-obtuse, 10-15 mm wide, 10-15 mm long; inner series oblong to narrowly oblong, 40-50 mm long, 7-15 mm wide. Perianth strongly incurved, 30-35 mm long, tube region 10 mm long, inflated, prominently quadrangular and ridged, glabrous; claws narrowing abruptly, upper half sparsely beset with golden-tawny pubescence; limbs linear-acute, 8-10 mm long, glabrescent to sparsely setose with straight, tawny trichomes. Anthers 4, subsessile. Style very strongly adaxially curved, terete and swollen proximally, tapering terminally, 30-38 mm long. Pollen presenter 10 mm long, straight, linear-acute, clearly demarcated from style. Ovary obconic, 3 mm long, covered with long, straight, tawny trichomes. Hypogynous scales ovate-acute, 2 mm long.