 Milne found the tree growing on the Isle of Pines in the south of New Caledonia.Specimens were sent to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew where the plant flowered in the greenhouse in 1860.Two years later botanist Berthold Seeman named the plant "Meryta denhamii" in honour of Henry Mangles Denham, captain of "Herald", for whom also the town of Denham, Western Australia was named.