Brown eventually published the species in his 1810 work "On the natural order of plants called Proteaceae". The specific name is derived from the Latin words "ilex" "holly" and "folium" "leaf", hence "holly-leaved". In 1810, Brown published "Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen" in which he arranged the genus into two unranked groups. "B. ilicifolia" was placed alone in "Isostylis" because of its unusual dome-shaped inflorescences. All other species were placed in "Banksia verae", the "true banksias", because they have the elongate flower spike then considered characteristic of "Banksia".