a bit smaller in length than the actual flowers. The plant is monoecious with both sexes in each flower. The petals and sepals of the flowers are fused into a long perianth-sheath. The last two thirds of this sheath is slender, but then it widens towards the base, this area having three inconspicuous keels and five veins. The outside of the sheath is covered in dense amounts of dark brown, pubescent hairs on the slender part, but the widened base is ciliolate but otherwise glabrous. The sheath has a 12.7 mm long lip. This lip is shaggy-haired (i.e. villous), except for its back, which is glabrescent. The two outer of these teeth are much longer than the middle one: they are thread-like in shape, sharply pointed, and 3.2 mm long, whereas the middle one is much shorter and less conspicuous. All of the stamens are fertile. Their filaments are 0.53 mm long and widen towards their tops. The anthers are linear and 4.2 mm long. The apical glands are 0.53 mm in length, oblong in shape and end in an obtuse point. The ovary is densely covered in reddish hairs and is subobovate-oblong in shape. The style is subulate and terete, and arises from a narrowly compressed and obliquely lanceolate base. It is 3.7 mm long, covered in pubescent hairs from the top up until its middle section, strongly curved below its middle, and constricted where it joins with the ovary. The stigma is subulate, with an obtuse end, and almost imperceptibly becomes the style. Fruit The fruit is a nut. The seed is stored in a capsule which is retained in the dried, fire-resistant inflorescence, which itself remains attached to the plant after senescence. When they are eventually released after fires stimulate the capsules to open, the seeds are dispersed by means of the wind. Distribution Protea burchellii is endemic to the southern and southwestern Cape Region of South Africa, where it is only found in the Western Cape province. The range extends from the Hottentots Holland Mountains to the Olifants River Mountains, and on the lowland flatlands on the Cape Peninsula (historically) to the plains of the Hopefield Flats. Isolated populations occur on the Witzenbergvlakte, Piketberg, and the upper part of the Breede River Valley. It grows around the Paarl Rock and near the town of Mamre. Ecology The periodic wildfires which occur in its habitat will destroy