George Bentham, writing a complete taxonomy of the Labiatae family in 1848, placed it as the sole member of the genus Preslia, but in this case as a single species, and following the name assigned to it by botanist Georg Fresenius, Preslia cervina. Bentham noted its similarities to the species he placed within the Mentha and Pulegium genera, but agreed with Opiz's decision to separate it from them, based in part upon the number of calyx lobes present. In 1877, Louis Jules Ernest Malinvaud reversed the trend of isolating the species, placing it within a genus of his creation, Menthoides, along with Mentha pulegium and Mentha requienii. John Isaac Briquet however echoed Bentham and Opiz's classification of the species alone within the genus Preslia in his 1897 classification.
