[4] The type specimen of A. detmoldii was collected from the vicinity of the Blackwood River around 1870,[5] and sent to Ferdinand von Mueller who published the species in Volume 8 of his Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae in 1874.

Eurylaema in Ernest Charles Nelson's 1978 revision of Adenanthos,[5] and again in his 1995 treatment of the genus for the Flora of Australia series.

Unusually for Adenanthos species, it favours damp winter-wet, sandy flats, where it co-occurs with Banksia ser.

[11] It is said to be now largely confined to road verges because most of its range has been cleared for agriculture,[4] though in 1978 Nelson still held out some hope that "[i]t may be common in wet swamp areas that are not accessible and have not been drained.

[3] Naturally a dry-summer plant, it performs unexpectedly well in areas with wet or humid summers, though it is vulnerable to grey mould in such climates.