Abietinae was first published in 1856, in Carl Meissner's chapter on the Proteaceae in A. P. de Candolle's Prodromus systematis naturalis regni vegetabilis.

Oncostylis, and defining it as containing only those species with entire, linear leaves with revolute margins, and having roughly spherical inflorescences.

Abietinae in George's taxonomic arrangement of Banksia may be summarised as follows:[4] In 1996, Kevin Thiele and Pauline Ladiges undertook a cladistic analysis of morphological characters of Banksia, which yielded a phylogeny somewhat at odds with George's taxonomic arrangement.

Abietinae sensu George, and also B. tricuspis (Lesueur Banksia): B. nutans var.

cernuella B. violacea B. laricina B. incana B. tricuspis B. pulchella B. meisneri var.

[4] Since 1998, Austin Mast has been publishing results of ongoing cladistic analyses of DNA sequence data for the subtribe Banksiinae.

His analyses suggest a phylogeny that is very greatly different from George's taxonomic arrangement, including finding Banksia to be paraphyletic with respect to Dryandra.

[6][7][8] Early in 2007 Mast and Thiele initiated a rearrangement of Banksia by transferring Dryandra into it, and publishing B. subg.

Mast and Thiele have foreshadowed publishing a full arrangement once DNA sampling of Dryandra is complete.