 In 1859, Samuel Friedrich von Stein moved "Spirostomum virens" to a new genus, which he called "Climacostomum".In his Manual of Infusoria (1880), William Saville-Kent rejected Stein's genus, assigning the species instead to "Leucophrys patula", which he described as synonymous with Ehrenberg's "Spirostomum virens" and "Leucophrys patula", as well as the "Trichoda patula" of O.F.Muller.