This species was separated from Catesbaea parviflora by Candolle, but the characters separating them were not clearly explained. This material seen that appears to correspond to this name is sterile, though the G-DC specimen has not been checked. Catesbaea parrvifolia was apparently not fully known to him in any case, and its fruits are still not known. It is similar to Catesbaea parviflora, which was not reported from Hispaniola by Liogier (1995), and to several other Hispaniolan species and these probably should all be compared again including field observations. The name Catesbaea parvifolia has priority over all the other Catesbaea names in use in Hispaniola, and most likely applies to one of the species now treated under newer names. 

In the protologue of Catesbaea parvifolia, Candolle cited two other names as equivalent, Catesbaea parviflora var. domingensis Spreng. and Gardenia parvifolia D. Dietr., and he also noted that the name Randia parvifolia Lam. was possibly associated with this name but problematic in some of its details. The first, varietal name he cited was not a published name, but seems to refer to the "Domingensis" variant of Sprengel's species, which Sprengel circumscribed to include plants from both Jamaica and from Santo Domingo. The name Randia parvifolia was said by Candolle to potentially to be similar to Catesbaea parvifolia but to differ from that in its apparently 5-merous flowers and in having included some plants of Sloan's that were not the same. This Randia name was cited by Candolle in a separated note at the end of the entry for Catesbaea parvifolia. not as part of the basic information about this species, so he did not positively consider this name equivalent. The third name that Candolle cited, Gardenia parvifolia, is a nomenclatural combination based on Randia parvifolia so when he excluded the Randia name as problematic, the Gardenia name was also excluded. This leaves Catesbaea parvfolia as a new species described by Candolle based on the specimen from Santo Domingo that Sprengel included in his circumscription of Catesbaea parviflora Sw., a Bertero collection that was cited explicitly by Candolle here. The MO sheet of this was distributed with an annotation by Bertero as Catesbaea parviflora, and was overlooked as corresponding to Catesbaea parvifolia probably due to this annotation and the general similarity of these two species epithets.