[2][3][4] This species was first formally described in 1875 by Ferdinand von Mueller who gave it the name Spyridium pumilum in Fragmenta Phytographiae Australiae from specimens he collected in the Stirling Range.

[5][6] In 1904, Ludwig Diels changed the name to Stenanthemum pumilum in the journal Botanische Jahrbücher für Systematik, Pflanzengeschichte und Pflanzengeographie.

majas grows with Allocasuarina and Eucalyptus species, often in gravelly laterite or on granite outcrops, between the Brookton Highway and Highbury in the Avon Wheatbelt and Jarrah Forest bioregions of south-western Western Australia.

[4][11][15] Subspecies pumilum mostly grows in low heath and is restricted to the eastern half of the Stirling Range in the Esperance Plains bioregion.

[4][14][15] Subspecies majus is listed as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions,[12] but subsp.