Philip Miller, the Scottish horticulturist and botanist, established the genus Morea in 1758, in tribute to the English horticulturist Robert More of Shropshire. Carolus Linnaeus later altered the spelling of the genus name to Moraea, in order to associate it with his father-in-law, the Swedish physician Dr Johan Moraeus. The specific name insolens, is descriptive of the radiant, glowing tepal colour of the orange-red forms. The species was first documented in the 1820s by the European botanical collectors, C.F. Ecklon and C.L. & Zeyher, who recorded it at two localities near Caledon. It was initially described as Homeria maculata by the German botanist F.W. Klatt in volume 34 of Linnaea in 1866. The plant appears not to have been recorded again until the early 20th century, when it was displayed at the Caledon Wild Flower Show in 1912 and 1931. A cream-coloured form was collected and painted in 1921 by Louise Guthrie at the Bolus Herbarium, from a locality just west of Caledon. Decades later, the English anthropologist and Iridaceae enthusiast Thomas T. Barnard, discovered a population of orange-red plants east of Caledon in 1968 and the species was described as Moraea insolens by Peter Goldblatt in volume 41 of The Flowering Plants of Africa in 1971, illustrated with a watercolour plate by Margo Branch. Occurring on a small piece of state-owned land, comprising just a few hectares, a protective perimeter fence was erected around this population and for many years, local volunteer conservationists have attempted to keep encroaching alien vegetation under control. In 2007, a small new population comprising some 50 individuals, was discovered within a private nature reserve to the northeast of Stanford. Plants from east of Caledon have been in continuous cultivation at Kirstenbosch, since 1982.

Comprising well over 200 species of winter-growing, summer-growing and evergreen cormous plants, Moraea is native to sub-Saharan Africa, the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East, and its centre of diversity is in the southwestern part of the Western Cape. The species vary from delicate, slender plants with exceptionally narrow, deciduous leaves, such as Moraea worcesterensis, to robust ones with leathery, relatively broad, evergreen leaves, like those of M. alticola and M. spathulata. The M. villosa (peacock moraea) from the Western Cape, is one of the most admired species. The most well-known member in ornamental horticulture is probably the frost-hardy, evergreen M. huttonii, a yellow-flowered, sweetly-scented species found from the Eastern Cape to Mpumalanga. Numerous species including M. aristata, M. gigandra, M. loubseri and M. tulbaghensis are threatened in the wild, due mainly to habitat loss. The corms of M. fugax (soetuintjie) can be eaten raw and are known to have been consumed by Cape hunter-gatherer peoples. The genus also contains several, very poisonous, weedy species, such as M. miniata (pronktulp) and M. polystachya (bloutulp), which are problematic to stock farmers in South Africa and have become invasive in parts of Australia. Due to their deciduous nature and requirement of a dry, dormant period in most species, the deciduous moraeas are generally unsuited to general garden cultivation and best grown in containers.