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

Dryandroideae, he felt that "Banksia dryandroides appears to provide a link between the Spicigerae and the Abietinae but is sufficiently distinct from both to be placed in its own series."

Thiele and Ladiges found B. dryandroides to be sister (that is, the next closest relative) to a clade containing B. ser.

[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, though it is not yet clear how these findings will impace B. ser.

[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.