The species was first described by William Wright Smith in 1921 as Herminium calceoliforme,[2] having been collected by George Forrest in 1914 on the watershed between the Mekong and Yangtze rivers.[4]
It has been placed in several genera at different times, including the monotypic genus Smithorchis.[3] A molecular phylogenetic study in 2014 found that it was deeply embedded in a clade of Platanthera species, and so it was transferred to that genus as Platanthera calceoliformis.[5][2]