It is assumed that Salisbury had based his review on a draft he seen of a paper called "On the natural order of plants called Proteaceae" that Robert Brown was to publish in 1810. Brown assigned the specimens of Bergius and Thunberg to the genus "Leucospermum" as "L. oleaefolium" and "L. crinitum", and added a description of a further specimen as "L. molle". The French botanist Jean Poiret assigned that last specimen to the genus "Protea" in 1816, making the new combination "P. mollis". Ernst Gottlieb von Steudel assigned "crinitum" in 1841 to the genus "Leucadendron". Heinrich Wilhelm Buek created the names "Leucospermum penicillatum" and "L. cryptanthum" in a book by Johann Franz Drège from 1843, and Carl Meissner provided in 1856 a description for "L. penicillatum". Otto Kuntze moved "molle" and "penicillatum" in 1891 to "Leucadendron". Michel Gandoger finally added "Leucospermum schinzianum" in 1913. John Patrick Rourke in 1970, regards all these names as synonymous. During the 1970s, the International Botanical Congress decided to replace all instances of compounding by the genitive "ae" by "i", thus changing the spelling of the name of this species to "Leucospermum oleifolium". "L. oleifolium" has been assigned to the section "Crinitae". The species name "oleifolium" means olive-leaf. "Leucospermum oleifolium" ranges from Pringle Bay in the south, via the Kogelberg Nature Reserve, Hottentots Holland Mountains, Franschhoek, Villiersdorp to the Haweqwa Nature Reserve, and an isolated population around Bainskloof Pass in the north, and eastwards along the Riviersonderend Mountains to Tyger Hoek. It can grown on very well-drained coastal rocks at only 50 m (150 ft) from the high tide line but also on cool peaty slopes at 900 m (3,000 ft) elevation. It is found in the winter rain zone in Fynbos on weathered Table Mountain Sandstone, but only where the local mean annual precipitation is at least 75 cm (30 in).