[2][3] The white ogre orchid was first formally described in 1897 by George King and Robert Pantling who gave it the name Habenaria maingayi and published the description in Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.

[4][5] In 2001 Jeffrey James Wood and Paul Abel Ormerod changed the name to Peristylus maingayi.

[1] The specific epithet (maingayi) honours the collector of the type specimen, Alexander Carroll Maingay.

[5] Peristylus maingayi grows in swampy grassland, and grassy forest and woodland.

It is found in Malesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, New Guinea and northern Australia where it occurs on the Cape York Peninsula and as far south as Proserpine.