It is found on the south coast of Western Australia between Hopetoun (34° S 120° E) and Point Culver (33° S 124° E), growing on white or grey sand in shrubland.

Though widely occurring, the species is highly sensitive to dieback and large populations of plants have succumbed to the disease.

Collected and described by Robert Brown in the early 19th century, B. speciosa is classified in the series Banksia within the genus.

In cultivation, B. speciosa grows well in a sunny location on well-drained soil in areas with dry summers.

[2] It has an open many-branched habit, arising from a single stem or trunk with smooth grey bark.

The seedling leaves emerge in an opposite arrangement and are deeply serrated into three triangular lobes on each side.

Combined with its vigour and prominence in its habitat, this has led George to speculate that it is a recent development among its relatives.

Meissner divided Brown's Banksia verae, which had been renamed Eubanksia by Stephan Endlicher in 1847,[3] into four series based on leaf properties.

He thought its closest relative was clearly Banksia baxteri based on their similar appearance, noting the two overlapped in their distribution.

[16] Mast, Eric Jones and Shawn Havery published the results of their cladistic analyses of DNA sequence data for Banksia in 2005.

They inferred a phylogeny greatly different from the accepted taxonomic arrangement, including finding Banksia to be paraphyletic with respect to Dryandra.

[18] B. speciosa occurs on coastal dunes and sandplains in the Esperance Plains and Mallee biogeographic regions on the south coast of Western Australia,[2] from East Mount Barren in the Fitzgerald River National Park and the vicinity of Hopetoun eastwards to Israelite Bay, generally within 50 km (30 mi) of the coast.

The range extends inland to Mount Ragged and 25 km (16 mi) southwest of Grass Patch.

[5] B. speciosa grows on flat or gently sloping ground on deep white or grey sand.

Insects recorded include ants, bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, flies and beetles.

[6] B. speciosa is serotinous, that is, it has an aerial seed bank in its canopy in the form of the follicles of the old flower spikes.

Young plants begin flowering three years after regenerating from bushfire and store progressively larger numbers of old flowerheads (and hence seed) in the canopy.

[6] An experimental burn and monitoring of resultant seedling germination and growth showed B. speciosa seeds, though numerous, had poor rates of establishment but that seedlings were able to access water more easily and had higher rates of survival after two years than co-occurring Banksia species.

Though this suggested B. speciosa might outcompete its conspecifics, the authors of the study noted that there could be other factors not accounted for in its natural environment.

[21] Nursery plants in Italy perished from root and basal stem rot from the pathogen Phytophthora taxon niederhauserii.

[22] The tiny sac fungus Phyllachora banksiae subspecies westraliensis has been described from the leaves of B. speciosa, its sole host.

This fungus manifests as round flat cream-coloured spots around 1–3 mm in diameter on the upper leaf surface.

[24] It was one of several species considered for commercial cropping in Tenerife, and trials showed that seedlings were moderately tolerant to salinity.