Banksia pilostylis

Species of shrub in the family Proteaceae native to Western Australia

Banksia pilostylis is a species of shrub that is endemic to the south west of Western Australia. It has hard, fissured bark, narrow wedge shaped, serrated leaves, pale yellow flowers in cylindrical spikes and elliptical follicles that open when heated in a bushfire.

Banksia pilostylis is a shrub that typically grows to a height of and has hard, fissured bark but does not form a lignotuber. The leaves are serrated, narrow wedge shaped, long and wide on a petiole long. The flowers are pale yellow and closely packed in a cylindrical spike long and wide with hairy involucral bracts long at the base of the spike. The perianth is long and the pistil long and curved. Flowering occurs from October to January and up to twenty five elliptical follicles long and wide, surrounded by the remains of the flowers, develop in each spike. The follicles usually remain closed until the plant is killed in a bushfire.

Banksia pilostylis was first formally described in 1964 by Charles Gardner in the Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia from specimens he collected in October 1960. The specific epithet (pilostylis) is from Latin and refers to the hairy style. In 1981, George placed this species in the series Cyrtostylis. Cladistic analysis in a 1996 paper by Kevin Thiele and Pauline Ladiges confirmed that placement.

This banksia grow in shrubland and low woodland near the south coast of Western Australia between Ravenshorpe and Israelite Bay.