The first reference to this species came in John Ray's 1690 Synopsis, which recorded the discovery of a rare fern near the summit of Snowdon in Wales by Edward Lhwyd. However, the plant was first definitely identified as a separate species from specimens collected in Scotland in James Bolton's 1785 publication Filices Britannica. Bolton distinguished between Acrostichum ilvense and Acrostichum alpina, now Woodsia ilvensis and Woodsia alpina respectively, which had previously been conflated. The story is further confused because although Lhwyd called his find A. ilvense, and a translation of the Latin name suggests the plant we now know as W. ilvensis, examination of his specimens has shown that he collected W. alpina. The genus Woodsia was not established until 1810 by Robert Brown, who named it named after the English botanist Joseph Woods.