[3] New branchlets are densely covered with rust-coloured fur that persists for 1–2 years; the upper tips of new growth have furry prophylls.

The first botanical collection of B. robur was made 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.

It is said that every specimen collected during the Endeavour voyage was sketched by Banks' botanical illustrator Sydney Parkinson, but no such painting of B. robur is extant.

On the Endeavour's return to England in July 1771, Banks' specimens became part of his London herbarium, and artists were employed to paint watercolours from Parkinson's sketches.

[7] Despite being one of the first four Banksia species collected, the single specimen of B. robur was somehow overlooked and not described by Carolus Linnaeus the Younger in 1782.

[10] Robert Brown renamed B. robur as B. latifolia in 1810, clarifying that he was forced to change the name as the plant grew as a low shrub not a tall tree.

[12] German botanist Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link catalogued B. latifolia and described B. macrophylla from cultivated material in the Berlin Botanic Gardens in his 1821 work Enumeratio plantarum Horti regii botanici berolinensis altera;[13] B. fagifolia was described by Johann Centurius Hoffmannsegg in 1826; these have been synonymised as B.

Meissner divided Brown's Banksia verae, which had been renamed Eubanksia by Stephan Endlicher in 1847,[14] into four series based on leaf properties.

[20] The current taxonomic arrangement of the genus Banksia is based on George's 1999 monograph for the Flora of Australia book series.

In a morphological cladistic analysis published in 1994, Kevin Thiele placed it in the newly described subseries Acclives along with B. plagiocarpa, B. oblongifolia and B. dentata within the series Salicinae.

[4] Locales include Calga north of Sydney, Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, and Cordeaux Dam near Wollongong.

[27] Banksia robur is native to coastal eastern Australia, where it is found from New South Wales to north Queensland.

[4] In the Sydney basin it is associated with heath flora such as pink swamp-heath (Sprengelia incarnata), coral fern (Gleichenia dicarpa), and Leptocarpus tenax.

Like other banksias, B. robur plays host to a wide variety of pollinators, including insects such as butterflies, moths, bees, wasps, ants and jewel beetles, and many bird species.

[4] As B. robur naturally occurs in wet areas (hence the common name) on sandy soils, these make the best growing conditions.