Female Leucadendron xanthoconus cones abound like festive candles at stem-tips here. The already hard but still ripening cones are dull pink on their upper bracts around the cone tops. This is where wicks would have been if the cones were candles.
The sickle-shapes of particularly the upper leaves are present as expected, albeit that the curving and twisting are very variable in the elongated involucral leaves just below the cones. The sickle shape is presented in these leaves in such a free manner that they follow, rather than give rise to the idea of such a reaping tool. The inventor of the sickle did not wander about in southerly fynbos way back when that penny first dropped.
Yellow leaf colouring is present on less than the lower halves of the uppermost involucral leaves in picture. Male plant stem-tips are much yellower in season than this.
Only the young leaves are hairy, appearing silvery (Marais, (Ed.), 2017; Manning, 2007; Bean and Johns, 2005; Mustart, et al, 1997; iNaturalist).