Protea nitida is a tree reaching about 7 m in height when growing a single stem (SA Tree List No. 86). When branching low down it may become a wide shrub, sometimes only 1 m tall.
In flower a thriving waboom is an impressive sight. The flowers are usually creamy white, but solitary pink mutant trees are sometimes seen. The species is closely related to the summer rainfall, pink flowering species, Protea caffra. Although the two species are climatically and geographically discrete, the occasional pink flowering P. nitida makes one wonder about the evolving of the link.
The species distribution is widespread in the west and south of the Western Cape, also slightly into the southwest of the Eastern Cape.
The habitat is rocky fynbos mountain slopes in sandstone, shale, granite, quartzite and conglomerate, as well as coastal fynbos flats. The species is not considered threatened in habitat early in the twenty first century (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Rourke, 1980; iNaturalist; http://redlist.sanbi.org).