The lineage of the Proteaceae, with relatives in Australia and New Zealand, has several representatives in the Park.
However, the genus has an anatomical feature, laterocytic stomata (having 3 or more parallel specialised subsidiary cells), which it shares with the Platanaceae (next closest relatives to the Proteaceae) and no other Proteaceae, which indicate it diverged from all other members of the family first.
Myrtaceous and proteaceous scrub-heath occurs in sandstone areas, and salt affected areas grow Tecticornia (Samphire).
Ernest Charles Nelson (15 September 1951, Belfast, Northern Ireland) is a botanist who specialises in the heather family, Ericaceae, especially Erica, and whose past research interests included the Proteaceae especially Adenanthos.
Among the enormous range of plants in this local vegetation type are hundreds of species of Erica, a wide range of Protea species and a great many plant families which are endemic.
The IAPT determined that a prior synonym for the genus, Fauria Franch., too closely resembled the genus Faurea (Proteaceae), and thus conserved Nephrophyllidium as the accepted genus name.
Sorocephalus, genus of small shrubs in the Proteaceae family
The name of the plant family Proteaceae as well as the genus Protea, both to which P. cynaroides belongs to, derive from the name of the Greek god Proteus, a deity that was able to change between many forms.