 At the time it was named "Pseudomonas maltophilia", but later transferred to the genus "Xanthomonas" before it was given its own genus.The genus name (from the Greek ‘stenos’, meaning narrow, ‘trophus’, meaning one who feeds and ‘monas’, meaning unit) was intended to highlight the limited nutritional range of the bacterium.However, several studies subsequently demonstrated that the genus is capable of great metabolic versatility and intraspecific heterogeneity.