The sepals and petals are only weakly differentiated, usually 5, rarely to 7 in number, free, or united only at the base.

Dipentodon was named and first described in 1911 by Stephen Troyte Dunn in what is now called the Kew Bulletin.

[4] At that time, Dunn wrote: The name Dipentodon, proposed for it, refers to the most remarkable character possessed by the flowers in the exact similarity of the calyx teeth and petals (if I rightly call them so) and their insertion so nearly in one whorl that the appearance is given of a ten-toothed perianth.Dipentodon was placed in its own family by Elmer Drew Merrill in 1941,[5] but this placement was not generally followed.

[11][12] Molecular phylogenetic studies have led to the widespread acceptance of the family Dipentodontaceae and its placement in the order Huerteales.

[2][15] When the APG II classification was published in 2003, the taxonomic position of Dipentodon was still unknown and it was placed incertae sedis in the angiosperms.