William Henry Harvey, an Irish botanist, divided the pelargoniums into 15 sections. The diagnostic features for the different divisions were based on leaf and flower characteristics and habitat. Pelargonium hermanniifolium is classified under the section Pelargonium. The section Pelargonium consists of profusely branched, often woody shrubs. The section contains well-known species such as P. betulinum, P. graveolens and P. capitatum which are also grown for their essential oils in the perfume industry.

P. hermanniifolium belongs in the family Geraniaceae, a large cosmopolitan family of approximately 11 genera and 800 species in subtropical and temperate regions of the world. The South African genera of the Geraniaceae family are Monsonia, Sarcocaulon, Pelargonium, Erodium and Geranium. There are approximately 270 species of Pelargonium which occur in S, E and NE Africa, Asia, St Helena, Tristan da Cunha, Madagascar, Australia and New Zealand, most of which (± 219 species) occur in southern Africa.

Pelargoniums are often incorrectly referred to as geraniums. Pelargonium gets its name from the resemblance of the shape of the fruit to the beak of a stork, which is pelargos in Greek. Hermannia is a genus of the family Malvaceae and folium is the Latin word for leaf. The leaves of the species resemble those of Hermannia.

The problem distinguishing between P. hermanniifolium and P. crispum dates from early in the history of plant taxonomy. The Swedish botanist P.J. Bergius described the plants as separate species while L'Héritier in 1789 did not recognize P. hermanniifolium as a separate species. William Harvey in 1860 considered it to be a variety of P. crispum. In 1912 the German botanist Reinhard Knuth separated them again as different species.