Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun A taxonomic genus within the family Proteaceae — the banksias, with characteristic flower spikes and fruiting cones and heads, native to Australia.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Named after the English botanist Sir Joseph Banks who collected the first specimens of the genus on his 1770 voyage to Australia with Captain James Cook. First published in 1782 by Carolus Linnaeus the Younger. Earlier, in 1775, Forster & Forster had proposed the name Banksia for the genus now called Pimelia, but Linnaeus' use was accepted.

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