Orchids in the genus Caladenia are terrestrial, perennial, deciduous, sympodial herbs with a few inconspicuous, fine roots and a tuber partly surrounded by a fibrous sheath.

The leaf may be medium-sized to large, fleshy or leathery, lance-shaped to oblong, but is always simple, lacking lobes and serrations.

The labellum is divided into three parts, each of which usually has a fringed or dentate margin, while the central lobe has stalked or button-like calli which are often in rows.

[3][4][5] The first specimens of the genus were collected by Joseph Banks in Sydney in 1777 and by Archibald Menzies in King George Sound in Western Australia in 1784.

Brown collected the specimens as a member of Matthew Flinders' mapping and exploration voyage that circumnavigated Australia.

[11] Recent studies of the molecular phylogenetics of the group suggest that John Lindley’s 1840 description of Caladenia (in The Genera and Species of Orchidaceous Plants),[12] but including Glossodia and Elythranthera, as being the most accurate reflection of the subtribe Caladeniinae.

Those orchids previously included in the genera Glossodia, Elythranthera and Cyanicula have been transferred to Caladenia.

Their habitats range from cool, moist Karri forest, to swamplands near the coast and to almost arid mallee woodland.

As it moves up the labellum, that organ tips the insect against the column where the wasp contacts the sexual parts and either picks up or deposits pollinia.

Sometimes hybrids between female-mimicking and food-attracting species occur as in the case of C. patersonii which has the odour of fermentation.