Louis-Marie Aubert-Aubert Du Petit-Thouars, a French botanist, established BULBOPHYLLUM in 1822. Thouars was from a wealthy family . For this crime, Thouars was imprisoned, by the French revolutionaries in 1790. Penniless, he escaped the guillontine, but was banished to Africa in 1792. For ten years, Thouars roamed southerneastern Africa, and the off shore islands, working odd jobs and collecting plants. He collected extensively in Madagascar.

In 1802, the tides of political fortunes again changed for Thouars. He returned to France, where he published his three major botanical works on African orchids. The works appeared in 1802, 1809, and 1822.

In 1891, Kuntze, a German taxonomist, postulated Thouars had established an earlier genus, PHYLLORCHIS, in 1802, for the plants commonly referred to BULBOPHYLLUM, and that BULBOPHYLLUM was incorrectly applied. Subsequently, Kuntze removed all existing BULBOPHYLLUMS to PHYLLORCHIS. The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), in a break with nomenclatural tradition , in 1896, decreed that even though PHYLLORCHIS was the correct name, common usuage favored BULBOPHYLLUM. Therefore, all PHYLLORCHIS were returned back to BULBOPHYLLUM.