This species has elliptic green leaves and large, bright golden yellow inflorescences or flower spikes, appearing in summer and autumn.

The rough grey bark has fissures, the stems and branches are finely hairy when young and become smooth with age.

The leathery bright green leaves are arranged whorled, or alternately on branches, and are borne on 0.5–1.1 mm long petioles.

[2] The earliest known botanical collection of B. verticillata was made by Scottish surgeon and naturalist Archibald Menzies during the visit of the Vancouver Expedition to King George Sound in September and October 1791.

[18] This application of the principle of priority was largely ignored by Kuntze's contemporaries,[19] and Banksia L.f. was formally conserved and Sirmuellera rejected in 1940.

No infrageneric arrangement was provided other than the removal of one distinctive species into a subgenus of its own, because of its unusual domed flower head.

[14] Banksia verae was renamed Eubanksia by Austrian botanist Stephan Endlicher in 1847, with B. verticillata remaining between the same two species as in Brown's sequence.

[22] Based as they were on leaf characters, Meissner's series were highly heterogeneous,[15] and George Bentham discarded them all in his 1870 revision of Banksia.

With respect to B. verticillata, their findings largely accorded with George's arrangement: section Oncostylis was discarded as polyphyletic, but series Spicigerae was inferred to be monophyletic, and B. verticillata appeared in a succession of clades with the species previously identified as its closest relatives: first B. littoralis, then B. seminuda, then B. brownii, and finally B. occidentalis (red swamp banksia):[25] B. occidentalis B. brownii B. seminuda B. littoralis B. verticillata This clade became the basis of Thiele and Ladiges' B. subser.

Under George's taxonomic arrangement of Banksia, B. verticillata's taxonomic placement may be summarised as follows:[4] More recent molecular research by Austin Mast and colleagues provide further support of B. verticillata's placement among its nearest relatives, but these do not appear to be closely related to the remaining members of B. ser.

Banksia verticillata is found in scattered populations in two disjunct segments: one clustered around Walpole, and the other around Albany and eastwards to Cheynes Beach.

Plants grow on exposed coastal granite outcrops, often in cracks within boulders as well as shallow rocky soils.

[27] It grows in association with Taxandria marginata, Western Australian peppermint (Agonis flexuosa), Andersonia sprengelioides and species of Hakea in scrub and heath.

[28] Small mammals are not major pollinators, although bush rats (Rattus fuscipes) and house mice (Mus musculus) have been recorded.

Several populations have reduced or vanished from dieback (Phytophthora cinnamomi), such as those at Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve and Gull Rock National Park.

[2] If fire occurs too frequently, plants are burned before reaching maturity or before they have produced sufficient seed to ensure regeneration of the population.

[31] Seed has been collected from many populations, but germination rates after ten years of storage are much lower than in Banksia brownii.

[2] Used successfully on B. brownii but as yet untrialled with B. verticillata, phosphite boosts the resistance of both infected and uninfected plants, and also acts as a direct fungicide.

The natural growing conditions point to a sunny aspect and good drainage as being important in cultivation.

[35] Very sensitive to dieback, B. verticillata (like most other western Australian banksias) perishes quickly in humid conditions or poor drainage.