Ptilotus nobilis, commonly known as yellow tails, is an annual or short-lived perennial herb of the family Amaranthaceae.

[1] The species was first formally described by English botanist John Lindley in Thomas Mitchell's Three Expeditions into the interior of Eastern Australia in 1838.

The species was transferred to the genus Ptilotus in 1868 by Victorian Government Botanist Ferdinand von Mueller in the sixth volume of his Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae.

[2] A 2007 molecular study of the ITS (internal transcribed spacer) nrDNA a few populations of P. nobilis var.

nobilis in a taxonomic paper by Tony Bean in 2008, citing this 2007 molecular study as "strong genetic evidence" (p. 241).