The genus Monochoria belongs to the family Pontederiaceae that consists of nine genera and 33 species. Five genera are from the New World (Pontederia, Reussia, Eurystemon, Hydrothrix and Zosterella), and two (Eichhornia and Heteranthera) from the New and Old Worlds. Monochoria and Scolleropsis are the only two genera from the Old World.

Monochoria is derived from two Greek words, mono, one, and choria, on its own or separate. The name could refer to the fact that when this genus was described it was the only one to occur in the Old World (Asia and Africa). The genus Scolleropsis from Africa was described later (Cook 1998), and it was therefore on its own in Asia and Africa. More likely it refers to the single, large, blue anther. The specific name refers to where the plant was collected, namely Africa.

The first Monochoria species to be collected in Africa was collected by Schweinfurth in 1869 in the Sudan and described by Solms-Laubach as M. vaginalis var. africana. Further research showed that it differed sufficiently from the Asian species of M. vaginalis, and was renamed M. africana ( Verdcourt 1961).

The first plant collected in South Africa was in 1937 by Stevenson-Hamilton, first warden of the Kruger National Park, at Gomonwane between Lower Sabie and Crocodile Bridge. Since then it has been collected five times: four times in the Kruger National Park in different pans between Lower Sabie and Olifants and Letaba camps in the Lebombo Mountains, and one record from outside the Park in Timbavati Private Game Reserve bordering the Kruger Park.