of nine to ten rows, and are ciliate (fringed with a hairs like an eyelash). These bracts are very densely covered in whitish hairs, tomentose to silky-pubescent in texture. The outer bracts are ovate and obtuse in shape, the inner bracts are oblong or spoon-shaped oblong, longer than the actual flowers, and have villous (shaggy) hairs at their ends. It is monoecious, both sexes occur in each flower. The petals and sepals of the flowers are fused into a glabrous, 19mm long perianth-sheath. This sheath is dilated from the middle downwards, having three keels and seven veins on this lower half, and thinly membranous above. The sheath has a lip which is 4.2mm long. The lip is three-toothed at the top, with each tooth almost equal in length, 0.5mm. The lip is oblong and glabrous except for the tips of the teeth, which are covered in ephemeral, fleeting, easily rubbed-off, villous hairs. All of the stamens are fertile. The filament is 0.35mm long and swollen. The anthers are linear and 3.2mm long. The apical glands are 0.26 mm in length and ovate in shape. The ovary is 4.2 mm long and covered in long, reddish-brown hairs. The style is slender, 21.2mm long, strongly curved to sickle-shaped, becoming subulate upwards, and arising from a keeled, widened and bulbously thickened base. The stigma is 3.2mm long, subulate, with an obtuse end, and obscurely bent at the junction where it joins the style. The seeds are stored in the many woody fruit studding the dried, old, fire-resistant inflorescence, and after these capsules eventually open after wildfires a few years later, are dispersed by means of the wind. Similar species In his original 1910 description, Phillips found this species most similar to P. humiflora, being distinguished by its narrow, decurrent leaves, and P. acerosa, from which it differs in the shape of its calyx. Distribution Protea decurrens is endemic to the Western Cape province of South Africa. The plant is found from Shaw's Pass (from Hermanus through the Kleinrivier Mountains to Caledon) to the Langeberg, and on the Potberg. Within this region it also grows near the town of Riversdale along the Correnterivier, along the Keurboomsrivier, and around the towns of Riversdale and Swellendam. It is known from twenty-five populations, these are fragmented (i.e. bits of once larger populations). Although its extent of occurrence is much larger, its area of occupancy is only 180–184