's painting of
B. spinulosa, which accompanied
James Edward Smith's formal publication of the species in 1793 The first known specimens of
B. spinulosa were collected near
Sydney by
John White, Surgeon General to the British colony of
New South Wales, sometime between 1788 and 1793. He called it "prickly-leaved banksia", though this name has fallen out of use. It is uncertain exactly when he first collected the species; it may have been before 1790, as there is speculation that a sketch in his 1790
Journal of a Voyage to New South Wales is of a
B. spinulosa infructescence. Text accompanying the figure states: English botanist
James Edward Smith later tentatively attributed this figure to
B. spinulosa: More recently, however, Alf Salkin has argued that: White probably collected the type material of
B. spinulosa in 1792.
Placement within Banksia In the first infrageneric arrangement of
Banksia,
that of Brown in 1830,
B. spinulosa was placed in subgenus
Banksia verae, the "true banksias", because its inflorescence is a typical
Banksia flower spike. It was placed next to
B. cunninghamii and
B. collina, both now considered varieties of
B. spinulosa; these three were placed between
B. ericifolia (heath-leaved banksia) and
B. occidentalis (red swamp banksia).
Banksia verae was renamed
Eubanksia by
Stephan Endlicher in 1847.
Carl Meissner demoted
Eubanksia to sectional rank in
his 1856 classification, and divided it into four series, with
B. spinulosa placed in series
Abietinae, while
B. cunninghamii and
B. collina were placed alongside each other in series
Salicinae. When
George Bentham published
his 1870 arrangement in
Flora Australiensis, he discarded Meissner's series, placing all the species with hooked styles together in a section that he named
Oncostylis.
B. cunninghamii was reduced to synonymy with
B. collina, as was the western species
B. littoralis (western swamp banksia). This arrangement would stand for over a century.
Alex George published a new taxonomic arrangement of
Banksia in his landmark 1981 monograph
The genus Banksia L.f. (Proteaceae). Endlicher's
Eubanksia became
B. subg. Banksia, and was divided into three sections, one of which was
Oncostylis.
Oncostylis was further divided into four series, with
B. spinulosa placed in series
Spicigerae because its inflorescences are cylindrical. This arrangement stood until 1999, when George effectively reverted to his 1981 arrangement in his monograph for the
Flora of Australia series. Under
George's taxonomic arrangement of Banksia,
B. spinulosas taxonomic placement may be summarised as follows: In 2005,
Austin Mast, Eric Jones and Shawn Havery published the results of their cladistic analyses of DNA sequence data for
Banksia. They inferred a
phylogeny very greatly different from the accepted taxonomic arrangement, including finding
Banksia to be
paraphyletic with respect to
Dryandra. A new taxonomic arrangement was not published at the time, but early in 2007 Mast and Thiele initiated a rearrangement by transferring
Dryandra to
Banksia, and publishing
B. subg.
Spathulatae for the species having spoon-shaped
cotyledons. They foreshadowed publishing a full arrangement once DNA sampling of
Dryandra was complete; in the meantime, if Mast and Thiele's nomenclatural changes are taken as an interim arrangement, then
B. spinulosa is placed in
B. subg.
Spathulatae.
Varieties leaves with serrations near apex only Four varieties are currently recognised: ;'
B. spinulosa
var. spinulosa
: The nominate race is an autonym, a name that was automatically created for the original material of the species as the other subspecies were described. The original hairpin banksia', this plant is coastal in Queensland, seen in such places as
Walshs Pyramid (near
Cairns),
Byfield National Park and the
Blackdown Tableland, then again in New South Wales south of the
Hawkesbury River, just north of Sydney, down the
New South Wales South Coast and into Victoria. It commonly has black, maroon or claret styles on gold spikes but all-gold inflorescences are seen, and leaves are generally narrower than other varieties at 1–2 mm in width and have several serrations toward the apex only. It differs from
B. spinulosa var.
spinulosa in having broader leaves 3–8 mm in width that have serrate margins. The leaf undersides have more prominent venation. ,
Blue Mountains ;'
B. spinulosa
var. cunninghamii
': This variety was published as
B. cunninghamii in 1827 in honour of the botanist
Allan Cunningham, and demoted to a variety of
B. spinulosa in 1981. The demotion has not been universally accepted however: in New South Wales it is still given species rank, and
B. spinulosa var.
neoanglica is considered a subspecies of it. George notes that at locations where both var.
spinulosa and var.
cunninghamii coexist, such as Fitzroy Falls in
Lawson, no intermediate forms occur. This plant is a fast-growing nonlignotuberous shrub or small tree to in height, occurring in the
Great Dividing Range from southeast Queensland to southern New South Wales and also in Victoria. The juvenile leaves are highly serrated, new branchlets are hairy and leaf undersides are pale brown rather than white as in the two previous varieties. Inflorescences are gold with black styles, though an all-yellow form from Victoria is known. those from Victoria having markedly longer juvenile leaves, and larger cotyledons. ;'
B. spinulosa
var. neoanglica
: Known as the New England banksia', it was published by Alex George in 1988, based on a specimen collected by him in 1986. In New South Wales it is considered an unnamed subspecies of
Banksia cunninghamii. This plant is found in the
New England Region of far northern New South Wales and Southeastern Queensland. It is a short lignotuberous shrub to in height. Inflorescences are gold with black styles. It has hairy new branchlets and pale brown leaf undersides. A molecular study with specimens of each subspecies from the three mainland eastern states they occur would shed light on this matter. ==Distribution and habitat==