Caladenia fuliginosa is a plant in the orchid family Orchidaceae and is endemic to the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. It is a ground orchid with a single hairy leaf and a single relatively large, creamy-yellow flower, sometimes with reddish lines. The flowers have a smell resembling hot metal.
Caladenia fuliginosa is a terrestrial, perennial, deciduous, herb with an underground tuber and a single, dull green, narrow lance-shaped leaf, NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long and NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 wide with purple blotches near its base. The leaf and the flowering stem are densely covered with erect transparent hairs up to 1sigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long. A single creamy-yellow flower NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 wide smelling of hot metal is borne on a wiry flowering stem NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 tall. The petals and sepals have thick, blackish glandular tips. The dorsal sepal is NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long, NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 wide, oblong to elliptic near the base then tapering to a glandular tip about 37sigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long and 1sigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 wide. The lateral sepals are lance-shaped near their bases, NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long, NaNsigfig=2NaNsigfig=2 wide and taper to a narrow glandular tip similar to that on the dorsal sepal. The petals are NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long, NaNsigfig=2NaNsigfig=2 wide, lance-shaped near the base then taper to a glandular tip similar to those on the sepals. The labellum is lance-shaped to egg-shaped, NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long, NaNsigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 wide and has seven to ten pairs of linear teeth up to 2sigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long on the edges. The tip of the labellum curls downward and there are six rows of purplish, mostly stalked calli along the mid-line of the labellum, the longest 2sigfig=1NaNsigfig=1 long and shaped like hockey sticks. Flowering occurs in late August and September.[1]
Caladenia fuliginosa was first formally described in 2006 by David Jones, who gave it the name Arachnorchis fuliginosa and published the description in Australian Orchid Research from a specimen collected near Corny Point.[2] In 2008, Robert Bates changed the name to Caladenia fuliginosa.[3] [4] The specific epithet (fuliginosa) is a Latin word meaning "sooty",[5] referring to the blackish glandular tips on the sepals and petals.
This spider orchid is only known from the south-western parts of Yorke Peninsula to the south of Corny Point where it grows in low shrubland with Callitris canescens in open areas among lepidosperma tussocks.