It was discovered on 11 May 2004, by Canadian astronomer William Yeung at the Desert Eagle Observatory, Arizona, United States.
It was named after the flowering plant Bauhinia blakeana also known as the "Hong Kong Orchid Tree".
[1] Bauhinia has not been observed by any of the space-based surveys such as the Infrared Astronomical Satellite IRAS, the Japanese Akari satellite or the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer.
Based on a generic magnitude-to-diameter conversion, the asteroid measures 0.91 kilometers in diameter based on an absolute magnitude of 17.6 and a geometric albedo of 0.20, which roughly corresponds to a body of stony composition, the most common type in the inner asteroid belt.
The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 1 June 2007 (M.P.C.