''Caladenia saccharata'', commonly known as sugar orchid, is a species of

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. The term "angiosperm" is derived from the Greek words ('container, vessel') and ('seed'), and refers to those plants th ...

in the orchid

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

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 of

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 leaf and a single flower with three white

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 two similar

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 saccharata'' 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 ...

, sympodial

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 a roughly spherical, white, fleshy

tuber Tubers are a type of enlarged structure used as storage organs for nutrients in some plants. They are used for the plant's perennation (survival of the winter or dry months), to provide energy and nutrients for regrowth during the next growing ...

surrounded in its upper half by a fibrous

sheath Sheath pronounced as , may refer to: * Scabbard, a sheath for holding a sword, knife, or other large blade, as well as guns, such as rifles. * The outer covering of a cable * Condom, a kind of contraception * Debye sheath, a layer of a plasma in ...

. Each year a replacement tuber is formed on the end of a short, root-like

stolon In biology, stolons (from Latin '' stolō'', genitive ''stolōnis'' – "branch"), also known as runners, are horizontal connections between organisms. They may be part of the organism, or of its skeleton; typically, animal stolons are external s ...

. There is a single, narrow linear-shaped leaf rising from the base of the plant. The leaf is pale yellowish green on both sides, hairy, long, wide and usually has irregular reddish-purple blotched near the base. There a single

resupinate Resupination is derived from the Latin word ''resupinus'', meaning "bent back with the face upward" or "on the back". "Resupination" is the noun form of the adjective "resupine" which means "being upside-down, supine or facing upward". The word " ...

flower on the end of a hairy, wiry stem high. The flower is long and wide on a stalk less than long and has a strong, musky cinnamon scent but does not have any nectar. The two lateral sepals are about the same size and shape as the two petals and are white, long, wide and curve slightly forwards. The dorsal sepal is slightly narrower than the lateral ones and the sides of the top half are curved inwards or "pinched". The sepals and petals have dark-coloured glandular hairs on their back surface. As is usual in orchids, one

is highly modified as the central labellum. The labellum is glabrous, divided into three parts, roughly circular when flattened, with the lateral lobes erect cream-coloured with obvious parallel purple lines and irregular purple blotches. The central part has smooth yellow calli in two rows. The sexual parts of the flower are fused to the

column A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...

which is narrow, curved forwards and has two

translucent In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without appreciable scattering of light. On a macroscopic scale (one in which the dimensions a ...

wings. Flowering occurs from August to September and the fruit which follows is a non-fleshy, glabrous,

dehiscent Dehiscence is the splitting of a mature plant structure along a built-in line of weakness to release its contents. This is common among fruits, anthers and sporangia. Sometimes this involves the complete detachment of a part; structures that op ...

capsule containing a large number of seeds.

Taxonomy and naming

''Caladenia saccharata'' was first formally described in 1871 by Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach and the description was published in ''Beitrage zur Systematischen Pflanzenkunde''. In 2004,

Stephen Hopper Stephen Donald Hopper AC FLS FTSE (born 18 June 1951) is a Western Australian botanist. He graduated in Biology, specialising in conservation biology and vascular plants. Hopper has written eight books, and has over 200 publications to his n ...

and Andrew Brown described the genus ''Ericksonella'' and included this species in the new genus but the change has not been accepted by the

World Checklist of Selected Plant Families The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (usually abbreviated to WCSP) is an "international collaborative programme that provides the latest peer reviewed and published opinions on the accepted scientific names and synonyms of selected plan ...

. The name ''"Ericksonella"'' honours Rica Erickson, botanist, author and artist. 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 ...

(''saccharata'') 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 ''saccharum'' meaning "sugar".

Distribution and habitat

''Caladenia saccharata'' grows in a range of soils and habitats including sand and clay loam, in shrubland near salt lakes, woodland and sheoak thickets around

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies undergro ...

outcrops. It occurs from near Paynes Find to

Israelite Bay Israelite Bay is a bay and locality on the south coast of Western Australia. Situated in the Shire of Esperance local government area, it lies east of Esperance and the Cape Arid National Park, within the Nuytsland Nature Reserve and the Grea ...

and inland as far as Coolgardie and

Norseman The Norsemen (or Norse people) were a North Germanic ethnolinguistic group of the Early Middle Ages, during which they spoke the Old Norse language. The language belongs to the North Germanic branch of the Indo-European languages and is the pre ...

in the Avon Wheatbelt, Coolgardie,

Esperance Plains Esperance Plains, also known as Eyre Botanical District, is a biogeographic region in southern Western Australia on the south coast between the Avon Wheatbelt and Hampton bioregions, and bordered to the north by the Mallee region. It is a pl ...

Jarrah Forest Jarrah forest is tall open forest in which the dominant overstory tree is ''Eucalyptus marginata'' (jarrah). The ecosystem occurs only in the Southwest Botanical Province of Western Australia. It is most common in the biogeographic region named in ...

, Mallee 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 ...

Conservation

Sugar orchid (as ''Ericksonella saccharata'') 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

External links

*
Retired Aussies, Western Australia Orchids, ''Ericksonella saccharata'', Sugar OrchidAtoz Visual, Western Australia's Native Orchids, sugar candy orchid, ''Ericksonella saccharata''
{{Taxonbar, from1=Q39345837, from2=Q15460542, from3=Q501026 Orchids of Western Australia saccharata Plants described in 1871 Taxa named by Heinrich Gustav Reichenbach