B. integrifolia was first collected at Botany Bay on 29 April 1770, by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander, naturalists on the Endeavour during Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific Ocean.
However, the species was not published until April 1782, when Carolus Linnaeus the Younger described the first four Banksia species in his Supplementum Plantarum.
Linnaeus distinguished the species by their leaf shapes, and named them accordingly.
Thus the species with entire leaf margins was given the specific name integrifolia, from the Latin integer, meaning "entire", and folium, meaning "leaf".
The full name for the species is therefore Banksia integrifolia L.f.

Then followed around 200 years of confusion over the taxonomic limits of the species, caused by the species' great variability, similarities with closely related species, and early attempts to classify the species based on dried specimen material alone.
A stable Banksia taxonomy did not begin to emerge until 1981 with the publication of Alex George's landmark monograph The genus Banksia L.f. (
Proteaceae).
Over the next 18 years, George's arrangement was gradually refined in the light of new research and the discovery of new material, and there were several changes to B. integrifolia's infraspecific taxa.
These changes culminated in George's 1999 arrangement, which had broad acceptance until 2005, when Austin Mast, Eric Jones and Shawn Havery published a phylogeny that did not accord with George's arrangement.
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. integrifolia is placed in B. subg.
Spathulatae; indeed, it is the type species for the subgenus.
B. integrifolia was first collected at Botany Bay on 29 April 1770, by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander, naturalists on the Endeavour during Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific Ocean. However, the species was not published until April 1782, when Carolus Linnaeus the Younger described the first four Banksia species in his Supplementum Plantarum. Linnaeus distinguished the species by their leaf shapes, and named them accordingly. Thus the species with entire leaf margins was given the specific name integrifolia, from the Latin integer, meaning "entire", and folium, meaning "leaf". The full name for the species is therefore Banksia integrifolia L.f.
Then followed around 200 years of confusion over the taxonomic limits of the species, caused by the species' great variability, similarities with closely related species, and early attempts to classify the species based on dried specimen material alone. A stable Banksia taxonomy did not begin to emerge until 1981 with the publication of Alex George's landmark monograph The genus Banksia L.f. (Proteaceae). Over the next 18 years, George's arrangement was gradually refined in the light of new research and the discovery of new material, and there were several changes to B. integrifolia's infraspecific taxa. These changes culminated in George's 1999 arrangement, which had broad acceptance until 2005, when Austin Mast, Eric Jones and Shawn Havery published a phylogeny that did not accord with George's arrangement. 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. integrifolia is placed in B. subg. Spathulatae; indeed, it is the type species for the subgenus.
Banksia integrifolia