Henri Perrier de la Bâthie, in 1914, collected a plant in the central region of Madagascar, near Antsirabe, at an elevation of 1,900 m (6,200 ft), where it grew on sandstone rocks in tapia woodland.

[1][3] Aimée Antoinette Camus named it after its collector and described it as new species in the genus Aristida;[4] Pierre Bourreil later transferred it to Sartidia.

[1] In 2014, biologists were able to sequence chloroplast and nuclear DNA from the 100-year-old type specimen and confirmed its placement in Sartidia with molecular phylogenetics.

It was suggested that pressure from grazing and agricultural expansion was already high at the time when Perrier de la Bâthie collected the plant.

[1] Wooded savannas may have been replaced by open, C4 grass-dominated grasslands, leading to the loss of habitats suitable to C3 grasses like S.