The flowers are borne in spherical heads 70–80 mm (2.8–3.1 in) wide, usually on the ends of short side branches.

[2][3][4] Banksia laevigata was first formally described in 1856 by Carl Meissner in de Candolle's Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis from specimens collected by James Drummond in the Swan River Colony.

[8] This application of the principle of priority was largely ignored by Kuntze's contemporaries,[9] and Banksia L.f. was formally conserved and Sirmuellera rejected in 1940.

Subspecies laevigata is found in the Ravensthorpe Range and along the Fitzgerald River where it grows in woodland and shrubland.

[3] Subspecies fuscolutea is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Parks and Wildlife,[15] but subsp.