It took until 1940 before the French botanist René Maire described it as a new species,[1] but it has since had a confused and turbulent taxonomic history.[2] Karol Marhold in 2011 in the Euro+Med Plantbase, for example, does not even recognise the species, but does include two different taxa both called D. atlantica, the correct one endemic to Algeria, and the other Moroccan one without authority attribution presumably being D. transiens.[8]