An iconic Australian wildflower and popular garden plant, they are recognised by their flower spikes or domes, and their fruiting "cones".
They grow in forms varying from prostrate woody shrubs to trees up to 35 metres tall, and occur in all but the most arid areas of Australia.
Specimens of Banksia were first collected by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander, naturalists on HM Bark Endeavour during Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook's voyage to the Pacific Ocean in 1770.
Dryandra is shown to have arisen from within the ranks of Banksia, so should not have been treated as a separate genus; and B. ilicifolia is a fairly derived species, contrary to the basal position suggested by Brown.
The phyletic order of species is accurate in some cases but grossly inaccurate in others; for example B. brownii and B. nutans are closely related but are placed very far apart by Brown.