three sections, one of which was Oncostylis. Oncostylis was further divided into four series, with B. spinulosa placed in series Spicigerae because its inflorescences are cylindrical. B. collina and B. cunninghamii were demoted to varieties of B. spinulosa, and as a result the name B. spinulosa var. spinulosa was used for the first time. In 1996, Kevin Thiele and Pauline Ladiges published a new arrangement for the genus, after cladistic analyses yielded a cladogram significantly different from George's arrangement. Thiele and Ladiges' arrangement retained B. spinulosa var. spinulosas position within the B. spinulosa complex, and retained B. spinulosa in series Spicigerae, but placed the species alone in B. subser. Spinulosae. This arrangement stood until 1999, when George effectively reverted to his 1981 arrangement in his monograph for the Flora of Australia series. Under George's taxonomic arrangement of Banksia, B. spinulosa var. spinulosas taxonomic placement may be summarised as follows: Genus Banksia Subgenus Banksia Section Banksia Section Coccinea Section Oncostylis Series Spicigerae B. spinulosa B. spinulosa var. spinulosa B. spinulosa var. collina B. spinulosa var. neoanglica B. spinulosa var. cunninghamii B. ericifolia B. verticillata B. seminuda B. littoralis B. occidentalis B. brownii Series Tricuspidae Series Dryandroidae Series Abietinae Subgenus Isostylis Since 1998, Austin Mast has been publishing results of ongoing cladistic analyses of DNA sequence data for the subtribe Banksiinae. His analyses suggest a phylogeny that is very greatly different from George's arrangement. George's and Thiele and Ladiges' positioning of B. spinulosa var. spinulosa within B. spinulosa is supported, but B. spinulosa's placement is not. Series Spicigerae appears to be polyphyletic, with B. spinulosa and B. ericifolia more closely related to the taxa in Series Salicinae than it is to the other members of series Spicigerae. Early in 2007, Mast and Thiele initiated a rearrangement of Banksia by merging Dryandra into it, and publishing B. subg. Spathulatae for the species having spoon-shaped cotyledons. They foreshadowed publishing a full arrangement once DNA sampling of Dryandra was complete; in the meantime, if Mast and Thiele's nomenclatural changes are taken as an interim arrangement, then B. spinulosa var. spinulosa is placed in B. subg. Spathulatae. The variety has two taxonomic synonyms: Banksia incognita, published anonymously in The Naturalists' Pocket Magazine in 1798, and Banksia denticulata, published by Georges Louis Marie Dumont de Courset in 1814. Distribution and habitat This variety occurs in a series of disjunct populations along the east coast of Australia. It