It is distinguished from other species of Ammocharis by the presence of zygomorphic flowers, as opposed to actinomorphic, and by its seed dispersal mechanism, with a wind blown indehiscent infructescence (fruiting head) that gave it its name.

[1] The fruiting head dries rapidly and is shed as a single unit, which the rolls away (tumbles), born by the wind.

[12] Cybistetes was described by Milne-Redhead and Schweickerdt in 1939,[10] and fairly consistently treated as a separate genus, being distinct from Ammocharis in both distribution and seed dispersal, and was grouped within Crininae by recircumscription of this subtribe in 2001, based on molecular phylogenetics.

[5][13][14] However Snijman and Linder (1996) had suggested, on morphological grounds alone that Cybistetes and Ammocharis be embedded in Crinum, there being insufficient synapomorphy to separate them, nevertheless they retained the distinction in their delineation of the subtribe (which incidentally contained Boophone).

[13] Although Germishuizen and Meyer embedded Cybistetes in Ammocharis in their original (2003) Plants of Southern Africa,[3] the 2007 online version lists it separately.