Protea nitida flowerhead open

The waboom (this Afrikaans name means wagon tree) is botanically known as Protea nitida. It is a small tree of the Western Cape, found from Table Mountain eastwards along the coastal mountains and inland on the mountains to the north in the province. It grows on sandstone slopes, often in rocky places. It may have a single trunk and reach 7 m in height, or be multi-stemmed and then often remaining a shrub, little over 1 m tall. 

Mature specimens display a corky bark, similar to that of P. caffra in the northern, summer rainfall areas of the country. The leaves are thick and leathery, oblong or elliptic and varying between grey-green, blue-green and silvery in colour. They have entire margins and are sessile on the chunky stems. The flowerheads are cup-shaped with yellow-green involucral bracts and a multitude of creamy white styles protruding like a sparsely haired shaving brush. The fruit is a small hairy nut released nearly a year after flowering.

Earlier names of this tree recognised before P. nitida was coined, include P. arborea and P. grandiflora.

The common name of waboom comes from the use of the wood. Felloes for wagon wheels used to be made of this wood in the days before the internal combustion engine served to save the wood and pollute the air. Another notable use of this tree is the ink that was made in olden days from crushed leaves mixed with a saturated solution of iron in water. The well-known diary of the Voortrekker leader, Louis Trichardt, was by some accounts written using this kind of ink. The wood of P. nitida yields a functional general purpose timber while the bark has been used in tanning hides (Coates Palgrave, 2002; Eliovson, 1967).