The species was formally described in 1838 by botanist John Lindley in Three Expeditions into the interior of Eastern Australia. It was first recorded by explorer Thomas Livingstone Mitchell in 1836 when he ascended Mount Hope in Victoria. Lindley gave it the name Pleurandra incana. Mitchell described the plant as a new and very beautiful species of Pleurandra with the aspect of the yellow Cistus of the Algarves.