Banksia acanthopoda is a species of shrub in the family Proteaceae. It grows as a small spreading shrub to high and has prickly leaves and yellow composite flower heads, called inflorescences, composed of 50 to 60 individual yellow flowers. Flowering takes place in the southern hemisphere winter. Endemic to Western Australia, it occurs only in a few populations in the vicinities of Woodanilling, Katanning and Darkan. Because of its rarity, it is classed as "Priority Two" conservation flora by Western Australia's Department of Environment and Conservation. The botanist Alex George first described this species in 1996, naming it Dryandra acanthopoda. It was renamed to its current name in 2007, when all Dryandra species were transferred to the genus Banksia. It is little known in cultivation and its sensitivity to dieback is unclear (although highly likely). It has potential as a cut flower. Description Banksia acanthopoda grows as a spreading shrub up to high. Its stems are matted with short soft hairs when young, but these are soon lost. Leaves are long, thin and curved, with five to ten spines on the petiole, sharply serrated leaf margins, and an acute leaf tip. The leaf blade, or lamina, is dark-green above, but white and hairy beneath. Leaves range from in length, and in width, on a petiole up to long. Inflorescences occur on short lateral branches, and consist of 50 to 60 yellow flowers packed densely together into a dome-shaped head up to in diameter, surrounded by short involucral bracts. As with other Banksia species, each flower comprises a perianth of four united tepals, with a single anther on a short filament attached near the tip; and a single pistil. In B. acanthopoda both perianth and pistil are yellow in colour; the perianth is from long, and the pistil a few millimetres longer. The fruiting structure is a woody dome firmly embedded with up to six light brown follicles, each containing one or two seeds. Banksia acanthopoda resembles B. hewardiana but has smaller leaves that are sticky when young. Its flower heads are similar to that of B. squarrosa, but its perianths and pistils are straight rather than curved, and longer. Taxonomy Early collections of B. acanthopoda include a specimen collected by F. W. Humphreys between Katanning and Kwobrup on 21 December 1964, a specimen collected by Alex George west of Woodanilling on 26 July 1986, a specimen collected by Ray Garstone