Banksia Ericifolia - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

B. ericifolia was first collected at Botany Bay on 29 April 1770, by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Daniel Solander, naturalists on the Endeavour during Lieutenant (later Captain) James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific Ocean. However, the species was not published until April 1782, when Carolus Linnaeus the Younger described the first four Banksia species in his Supplementum Plantarum. Linnaeus distinguished the species by their leaf shapes and named them accordingly. Thus the species with leaves reminiscent of heather (at the time classified in the genus Erica) was given the specific name ericaefolia, from the Latin erica, meaning "heather", and folium, meaning "leaf". This spelling was later adjusted to "ericifolia"; thus the full name for the species is Banksia ericifolia L.f., with the initials L.f. identifying Carolus Linnaeus the Younger.

While many Banksia species have undergone much taxonomic change since publication, the distinctive B. ericifolia has remained largely unchanged as a species concept. Consequently, the species has no taxonomic synonyms; it does, however, have three nomenclatural synonyms. The first synonym, Banksia phylicaefolia Salisb, was published by the English botanist Richard Anthony Salisbury in his 1796 Prodromus stirpium in horto ad Chapel Allerton vigentium. It was intended as a replacement name for B. ericaefolia, but Salisbury gave no reason why such a replacement was necessary. The name was therefore superfluous, and hence illegitimate. The second synonym arose from Otto Kuntze's 1891 challenge of the name Banksia L.f., on the grounds that Banksia J.R.Forst & G. Forst had been published before it, for the genus now known as Pimelea. Kuntze transferred all Banksia species to the new genus name Sirmuellera, in the process publishing Sirmuellera ericifolia (L.f.) Kuntze. The challenge failed, however; indeed, his entire treatise was widely rejected. Finally, in 1905 James Britten mounted a similar challenge, proposing to transfer all Banksia species into Isostylis; B. ericifolia L.f. thus becoming Isostylis ericifolia L.f. (Britten). This challenge also failed.

A recent change to the species' taxonomy is the recognition, in 1981, of an infraspecific taxon. The existence of different forms of B. ericifolia was first recognised in 1979 by the amateur botanist Alf Salkin, who noted three distinct forms of the species, with one being a possible hybrid with Banksia spinulosa var. cunninghamii. Salkin gave his northern form the provisional infraspecific name "microphylla", but when Alex George published a formal description in his 1981 The genus Banksia L.f. (Proteaceae), he named it B. ericifolia var. macrantha. In 1996, it was promoted to subspecific rank as B. ericifolia subsp. macrantha.