The genus Banksia was named in honour of Sir Joseph Banks, a botanist who was with Captain Cook during his first voyage (1768-1771). On Cook’s third voyage in January 1777, which included Adventure Bay in Tasmania, Captain James Cook reported a plant "most common about ten feet high, branching pretty much, with narrow leaves, and a large, yellow, cylindrical flower, consisting only of a vast number of filaments; which, being shed, leave a fruit like a pine top." It was the species Banksia marginata, the only widespread species of Banksia in Tasmania.

B. marginata is found throughout south-eastern Australia. It was first collected by prolific Spanish plant collector Luis Née in 1793 from somewhere between Sydney and Parramatta. The species was given the name it still bears today in 1800 by the Spanish botanist Antonio José Cavanilles. Robert Brown included six forms of Banksia marginata in his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen 1810.

The flower spikes are composed of up to 1,000 individual flowers. B. marginata is a host plant for Cyrioides imperialis (Banksia jewel beetle). Thank you to my dear friend, painter George Davis, for providing me with a specimen to include in this painting.