The name came about after a cladistic analysis of Banksia by Thiele and Pauline Ladiges yielded a phylogeny somewhat at odds with the arrangement of Alex George.

Cyrtostylis to be "widely polyphyletic", with six of its fourteen taxa occurring singly in locations throughout the cladogram; these were transferred to other series or left incertae sedis.

The remaining eight taxa formed a clade, which further resolved into two subclades:[1] B. pilostylis B. media B. epica B. praemorsa B. benthamiana B. audax B. laevigata subsp.

It was formally defined as containing those species with "linear-terete pollen-presenters that are scarcely distinct from the style, very small, narrowly flabellate-tridentate early seedling leaves, and often browning-orange inflorescences".

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

[2][3][4] Early in 2007 Mast and Thiele initiated a rearrangement of Banksia by transferring Dryandra into it, and publishing B. subg.