The French botanist Louis Marie Aubert Du Petit-Thouars (1758-1831) was a pioneer of botanical work by describing 107 orchid (Orchidaceae) species from Mauritius and La Réunion. Louis Marie Aubert Du Petit-Thouars established the Bulbophyllum genus, nowadays the largest genus in the orchid family, in the year 1822 and included the first 17 Bulbophyllum species.

Louis Marie Aubert Du Petit-Thouars was an aristocrat, during the French Revolution he was imprisoned for about 2 years and in the year 1792 he was exiled to Madagascar, where he started to collect plants. 1802 he returned to France with a collection of more than 2000 plants, which mostly went to the Muséum de Paris, some of them to the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. 1820 Louis Marie Aubert Du Petit-Thouars became an elected member of the Académie des Sciences de l’Institut de France in Paris. Several Orchid genera and orchid species had been named by Thouars and also a lot of plants has been named in honour of him.Louis Marie Aubert Du Petit-Thouars died at 12.05.1831 in Paris. His author abreviation: Thouars.