was established in 1838 by the Austrian botanist Stephan Ladislaus Endlicher through illustration[3] and description[4] of a specimen of Fockea capensis collected in Cape Colony circa 1786 by Franz Boos and Georg Scholl and cultivated at Schönbrunn Garden in Vienna.

[1] The genus was named in honor of the German physician and naturalist Gustav Woldemar Focke, author of the commentary De respiratione vegetabilium (Of the respiration of vegetables).

[4] The “Old Lady of Schönbrunn” — the oldest potted succulent in captivity — continued to be cultivated at least through 1988, over 200 years after it was first collected by Boos and Scholl.

[5][6] It was believed to be the last surviving member of its species until the South African botanist Rudolf Marloth collected another specimen of F. capensis near Prince Albert in 1906.

Fockea angustifolia, also widely distributed, is mainly tropical, and sister to the remaining four species, which are endemic to southern Africa.