''Caladenia saxicola'', commonly known as the banded ironstone spider orchid, is a plant in the orchid family

Orchidaceae Orchids are plants that belong to the family Orchidaceae (), a diverse and widespread group of flowering plants with blooms that are often colourful and fragrant. Along with the Asteraceae, they are one of the two largest families of flowering ...

and is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

to the

south-west The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

. It has a single erect, hairy leaf and one or two dull creamy-white to pale yellow flowers with spreading lateral

sepal A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 The term ''sepalum'' was coined b ...

s and

petal Petals are modified Leaf, leaves that surround the reproductive parts of flowers. They are often advertising coloration, brightly colored or unusually shaped to attract pollinators. All of the petals of a flower are collectively known as the ''c ...

Description

''Caladenia saxicola'' is a terrestrial,

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

deciduous In the fields of horticulture and Botany, the term ''deciduous'' () means "falling off at maturity" and "tending to fall off", in reference to trees and shrubs that seasonally shed leaves, usually in the autumn; to the shedding of petals, aft ...

herb In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal ...

with an underground tuber. It is sometimes found as a solitary plant or otherwise in small clumps. It has a single pale green, erect, hairy leaf long, wide. One or two flowers long and wide are borne on a spike tall. The flowers are dull creamy-white to pale yellow with dark red lines and blotches. The dorsal

is erect, long, wide and curves slightly forwards. The sepals and petals are linear to lance-shaped near their base, then suddenly narrow to a purplish-black, thread-like tip covered with glandular hairs. The lateral sepals are long, wide and spread widely but curving downwards. The petals are long, wide and spread widely, usually curving gently upwards. The labellum is creamy yellow with red stripes, long, wide with serrations on the sides. The tip of the labellum curves downwards and there are two rows of anvil-shaped calli up to long along its centre. Flowering occurs from late July to early September.

Taxonomy and naming

''Caladenia saxicola'' was first formally described by Andrew Brown and Garry Brockman in 2007 from a specimen collected near Coolgardie. The description was published in ''

Nuytsia ''Nuytsia floribunda'' is a hemiparasitic tree found in Western Australia. The species is known locally as moodjar and, more recently, the Christmas tree or Western Australian Christmas tree. The display of intensely bright flowers during the ...

''. The

specific epithet In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

(''saxicola'') is derived from the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

word ''saxum'' meaning "rock" and the

suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carry ...

''-cola'' meaning "dweller in" referring to the rocky habitat where this species grows.

Distribution and habitat

The banded ironstone spider orchid is found between Canna and Diemals in the Coolgardie and Yalgoo

biogeographic regions A biogeographic realm or ecozone is the broadest biogeographic division of Earth's land surface, based on distributional patterns of terrestrial organisms. They are subdivided into bioregions, which are further subdivided into ecoregions. De ...

where it mostly grows in seasonally moist soils on banded ironstone hills.

Conservation

''Caladenia saxicola'' is classified as "not threatened" by the Western Australian Government

Department of Parks and Wildlife The Department of Parks and Wildlife (DPaW) was the department of the Government of Western Australia responsible for managing lands described in the ''Conservation and Land Management Act 1984'' and implementing the state's conservation and e ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q15287659 saxicola Endemic orchids of Australia Orchids of Western Australia Plants described in 2007 Taxa named by Andrew Phillip Brown