The genus Baeometra was described by Salisbury (1812), derived from the Greek baios, small, and metron, measure, referring to its size. He erected the genus for a single species that he named Baeometra columellaris (referring to the columnar ovary), evidently unaware of the fact that the species had in fact already been named.

The earliest reference to the species is the beautiful coloured plate by the Austrian botanist and artist Nicholas Jacquin, who had figured the species in 1793 under the name Melanthium uniflorum. This name was largely ignored until 1941, when the South African botanist Gwendolyne Joyce Lewis correctly identified it as the earliest available epithet for the species.

Baeometra is a member of the family Colchicaceae, which comprises ± 15 genera and ± 225 species and is widespread around the world, mainly in areas with a Mediterranean climate. The family is closely allied to the Alstroemeriaceae. Baeometra still comprises just a single species restricted to the southwestern Cape. It was until recently treated in its own tribe Baeometreae on account of its spike-like raceme with reduced bracts, which appeared to be intermediate between the bractless spikes of the other southwestern Cape genera and the leafy racemes of the rest of the family.

Recent DNA analysis has shown that Baeometra is most closely related to the genus Wurmbea (including Neodregea and Onixotis), from which it differs most noticeably in its several (never only three) leaves, bracteate raceme, and lack of nectaries on the tepals. These two (or more) genera are now treated as the tribe Anguillareae.