The genus Pillansia was named after Neville Stuart Pillans (1884–1964), a South African Botanist, author, collector and assistant Curator of the Bolus Herbarium. Pillansia is a genus of flowering plants in the Iridaceae, a family of plants with corms or sometimes with rhizomes, that are woody or herbaceous. It was described as a genus in 1914. Pillansia is monotypic, containing only one species, Pillansia templemanii, it is placed in the Watsonieae tribe and is most closely related to Watsonia.

Pillansia templemannii was first collected in 1827 by C.F. Ecklon who named it Wredowia but did not write a formal description for it, making this name invalid. It was first described by J.G. Baker in 1892, who placed it in the genus Tritonia due to its radially symmetric, bright orange flowers. Baker named it after Robert Templeman, a seedsman, florist and nurseryman from Cape Town, who collected the type specimen in 1887. Louisa Bolus removed it from Tritonia in 1914 and placed it in the genus Pillansia, because its multi-branched stem, leathery floral bracts and divided style branches are not characteristics that are typical in the genus Tritonia. Recent molecular studies have validated Bolus’s thesis that this genus is a close relative to the genus Watsonia.