Caladenia longicauda was first formally described by John Lindley in 1840 and the description was published in A Sketch of the Vegetation of the Swan River Colony. In 2001 Stephen Hopper and Andrew Brown described eleven subspecies, including subspecies clivicola and the descriptions were published in Nuytsia. The subspecies name (clivicola) is a derived from Latin clivus meaning hillside and -cola meaning dweller, referring to the sloping hills of the Darling Scarp where this subspecies was discovered.