The name amissa means lost or missing. It was given this name because of its rarity and at one stage it was thought to be extinct. Moraea amissa, like most moraeas, only flowers for a short period and this is probably one of the reasons why this species is not often recorded.

J.H.P. Acocks, who was most well known for his vegetation map of South Africa, first collected the species in 1959. Peter Goldblatt only officially described it in the 1970s while he was working on the genus Moraea. The species was thought to be extinct after extensive searches in the area yielded no plants. It was only in 1981 that C.J. Burgers rediscovered this species while working on a threatened species monitoring programme.

In 2003 and 2004 the Custodians of Rare and Endangered Wildflowers (CREW) project attempted to find this species to reassess the its status. of this species. After two unsuccessful searches we thought that this species has lived up to its name and disappeared once again. In 2005 we decided to extend our search to another farm adjacent to the remnant we had been sampling. The fragment of vegetation was much smaller and seemed more disturbed. Finally after searching for about 15 minutes we found two plants in rocky outcrop. Indeed a proud moment for all of us present because we were probably the first people to see this species since 1981 and most probably the third in history.

Moraea amissa is most closely related to M. incurva, a species from Tulbagh, which incidentally was also thought to be extinct in the wild. M. amissa is within the subgenus Vieusseuxia together with the peacock moraeas, which are some of the most stunning plants in the Moraea genus.