Gardenia jasminoides was described by English botanist John Ellis in 1761, after it had been conveyed to England in the 1750s. It gained its association with the name jasmine as the botanist and artist Georg Dionysius Ehret had depicted it and queried whether it was a jasmine as the flowers resembled the latter plant. The name stuck and lived on the old common name and scientific epithet. The name G. augusta of Linnaeus has been ruled invalid.