It has a fire-tolerant, underground stem, pinnatifid leaves that have woolly hairs on the lower surface and heads of thirty to forty-five yellowish brown flowers surrounded by hairy bracts.

Banksia calophylla is a shrub with a fire-tolerant underground stem and pinnatifid leaves that are woolly hairy on their lower surface.

The flowers are arranged in heads of between thirty and forty-five on the ends of the stems, surrounded by hairy egg-shaped to lance-shaped involucral bracts 10–15 mm (0.39–0.59 in) long.

[2][3] This species was first formally described in 1830 by Robert Brown who gave it the name Dryandra calophylla and published the description in the supplement to his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen.

[7][8] This banksia grows in shrubland and woodland between Tenterden, Albany and Wellstead in the Esperance Plains and Jarrah Forest biogeographic regions.