Restricted to a single cliff-top dune system on the remote south coast of Western Australia, it is listed as rare and endangered.

Nelson was stimulated to make that revision from an interest in the problem of disjunct plant distributions in southern Australia, and therefore made collections at several locations, including three cliff-top dune systems of siliceous sand, isolated from each other by the calcareous soils of the Nullarbor Plain.

[1] The placement of A. eyrei in Nelson's arrangement of Adenanthos may be summarised as follows:[1] The species is most closely related to A. forrestii, from which it can be distinguished by its much larger leaves, its darker flowers, and by the absence of a lignotuber.

[6][7][2] However Nelson regards this as a "concocted" common name, "rather crudely made up from an English word or two tagged on to unitalicized Adenanthos", and adds that Eyre's rather than Toolinna "would have respectfully preserved the associations intended by the original author".

[8] This species is known only from a single population growing on a cliff-top dune system about 200 m east of Toolinna Cove, on the coastal margin of the Nullarbor Plain in southern Western Australia.

Actions being undertaken or considered include: a taxonomic review of the species; closure of the access track that passes through the population; ongoing surveys, mapping and monitoring of the population and habitat; the collection and ex-situ storage of seed; the collection of cuttings for cultivation at Kings Park and Botanic Gardens; and further research into the biology and ecology of the species.