102. Echeveria canaliculata Hooker fil.

(Figure 178.)


Echeveria canaliculata Hooker fil., Bot. Mag., pl. 4986, 1857; Britton and Rose, N. Amer. Fl., vol. 22, p. 17, 1905; Poellnitz, in Fedde Repert., vol. 39, p. 230, 1936.

Cotyledon canaliculata (Hooker fil.) Baker, in Saunders Refug. Bot., vol. 1, no. 9, 1869.

Illustration. Bot. Mag., pl. 4986, 1857.


Stem short, thick, fleshy to woody, erect, marked with scars of fallen leaves; when not flowering, the leaves are rosulately crowded, spreading, 10 to 15 cm. long, oblong or somewhat strap-shaped, thick, fleshy, tapering gradu­ally upwards into a slender, almost filiform point, deeply channeled above, rounded beneath; flowering branch elongated, 35 to 50 cm. tall; lower bracts similar to rosette-leaves, upper more distant even though numerous, of the same shape but smaller, at base with blunt spur, but not broadly sessile as rosette leaves; gradually passing into small, obtuse, upper bracts; raceme equi­lateral, 15 cm. long or more; pedicels 12 mm. long or more, with minute, subulate bractlets; sepals equal, linear-lanceolate, spreading-reflexed, much resembling the bracts; corolla to 25 mm. long, pentagonal; petals erect, shortly united at base, linear-lanceolate, moderately spreading at tips; ovaries nar­rowly oblong; nectaries suborbicular, with depression on upper edge; styles slightly twisted; stigmas globose. Flowers from April on. Description after Hooker, fil., loc. cit.


Color. Leaves glaucous tinged with purple; bracts very glaucous, as are the sepals; corolla bright brick-red.


Type. Perhaps in Kew Herbarium (K).


Occurrence. Mexico. Said to have come from vicinity of Real del Monte, (?) Hidalgo; recently from Motozintla, Chiapas.


Collections. Mexico. Motozintla, T. MacDougall in 1958. Cultivated: Dept. of Parks, Bronx, New York (US); Strybing Arboretum, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco E. Walther (CAS).


Remarks. While this appears to have been in cultivation quite recently at Dahlem and the Huntington Botanical Gardens, all trace of it is now lost. Echeveria canaliculata is related to E. atropurpurea and E. penduliflora. The latter differs in its flat leaves, strongly nodding flowers with deflexed pedicels and upper bracts, as well as in a much shorter corolla with appressed sepals.


Echeveria canaliculata finds its closest relation in E. atropurpurea which differs in its flat leaves, shorter corolla, and shorter sepals. South American species with large leaves resembling this are E. bicolor and E. cuencaensis, both of which differ in having shorter corollas and spreading sepals.



Figure 178. 102. Echeveria canaliculata Hooker fil. Flowering plant, x 0.7; floral parts enlarged. Plant grown at Kew. From the original publication (Curtis's Botanical Maga­zine, volume 83, plate 4986).


© Echeveria, 1972