Protea scabra flowers hug the ground in the centre of their tufts of long narrow leaves towering over them. The flower shape is turbinate, i.e. looking like an inverted spinning top, without the spin. The flowerhead is enveloped by five or six rows of involucral bracts that are darker closer to their tips and covered in reddish hairs.
The narrow individual flower corollas covering the stamens and styles, the perianths, are densely stacked in the flowerhead centre. They are creamy white with brown tips. Pollination is thought to be done by mammals, particularly by nocturnal rodents. Expect to see flowering any time from autumn to spring.
The distribution area of P. scabra lies from Sir Lowry’s Pass eastwards along lower mountain slopes to around Riviersonderend; some say Uniondale. It grows both in sandy and clayey soils.
This is not a garden favourite in the wider market, although ardent collectors can grow the plant from seed and get pleasure from displaying their achievement in a well drained sunny rockery.
It is not clear whether the gardener desiring the plant to bloom should make a small motivational fire upon the plant, as supervisors of lazy workers are sometimes wont to do; of course not over but under them (Rourke, 1980; Eliovson, 1973; Bean and Johns, 2005; http://protea.worldonline.co.za).