[2] The species was first described as Alcmene tobagensis by German botanist Ignatz Urban in 1921.

Urban's description was based on a collection made by Walter Elias Broadway in Tobago in 1912.

[3] It was first collected in 1912 by Walter Elias Broadway, a Trinidad-based plant collector and botanist.

[2] A fourth collection was made in 2000 in the Main Ridge Forest Reserve in Tobago.

[3] Although Duguetia tobagensis is not listed in the IUCN Red List, the authors of a 2008 assessment of the endemic plant species of Trinidad and Tobago considered it a vulnerable species, as it is known from fewer than five localities.