The word is masculine in Greek and Salisbury conjugated the species names accordingly. Robert Brown, and Phillips and Hutchinson made feminine epithets. Rourke in 1984 agreed with Salisbury. The species are called pagoda for their tiered compound inflorescences in English, and stompie (small stump) probably for the charcoaled remains sticking out of the ground after a fire in Afrikaans. The following species names are currently recognised:  Hybrids are known between "M. cucullatus" and "M. fimbriifolius" from the Cape Peninsula on locations where both parents grow side by side. Intermediate in most characters, the general habitat is mostly like that of "M. cucullatus", but the lowest part of the stems is stout, and the bark is thick and cartilaginous like that of "M. fimbriifolius". A hybrid of "M. capitulatus" and "M. hirtus" was collected ones, and specimens made from cuttings have since been grown at Kirstenbosch. The name "Mimetes purpureus" is a synonym of "Diastella proteoides". The herbarium specimen collected by Francis Masson, which was described by Salisbury in 1809 and named "Mimetes floccosa", could not be traced, and its description is so general that it could apply to several other species. So the identity of this name cannot be established. The genus "Mimetes" has a distribution not unlike other endemic genera in the Cape Floristic Region, with the highest species concentration in the wet mountains in the southwest, centered around the Kogelberg Nature Reserve. The genus can be found from near Porterville in the north and the Cape Peninsula in the southwest, to Formosa Peak in the east. There are three isolated inland populations of "M. cucullatus" in the Kouga Mountains, Klein Swartberg and Rooiberg, an isolated mountain in the middle of the Little Karoo. This makes it likely that its distribution used to be larger than today but, with increasing drought, it became limited to areas that are wet enough today. Its close relative "M. fimbriifolius" is restricted to the surroundings of Table Mountain and the Cape Peninsula. "M. saxatilis" occurs in an approximately 100 km (63 mi) long, narrow strip along the south coast between Franskraal in the west and Struisbay, several km east of Cape Agulhas, and from there in a narrow strip inland to around Bredasdorp.