The oldest known reference to the fringed pagoda was made by Herman Boerhaave, who described it as hypophyllocarpodendron; foliis lanuginosis; in apice trifido, rubro, quasi florescens [tree with fruits under the leaves, leaves woolly, tips with three teeth, red, like the inflorescence] in 1720. It was again described by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck in 1792, who called it Protea cucullata β. Richard Anthony Salisbury in a book by Joseph Knight titled On the cultivation of the plants belonging to the natural order of Proteeae, published in 1809, described the species and gave it the first proper Binomial nomenclature Mimetes fimbriifolius. In the following year, Robert Brown gave this species the name M. hartogii. In 1912, Edwin Percy Phillips, thought the fringed pagoda is no more than a form of the common pagoda and called it M. cucullatus var. hartogii. In 1984, John Patrick Rourke thought these names all referred to the same species, and should be treated as synonyms of Mimetes fimbriifolius.
