15. Echeveria elegans Rose.

(Figures 39-42.)

Echeveria elegans Rose, in Britton and Rose, N. Amer. Fl., vol. 22, p. 22, 1905; Poellnitz, in Fedde Repert, vol. 39, p. 238, 1936, in part only. Not E. elegans

Berger (which is E. harmsii F. Macbride).

Echeveria perelegans Berger, in Engler Nat. Pflanzenf., ed. 2, vol. 18a, p. 474, 1930.

Illustrations. Cactus and Succ. Jour. Amer., vol. 6, p. 138, figs. A4, A6, p. 163, 1935; Nat. Hort. Mag., vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 173, 174, 1935.

Rosettes stemless, globose, cespitose, and freely soboliferous; leaves thick and turgid, but thinnish at apex, alabaster white, oblong-obovate, 3 to 6 cm. long, 1 to 2 cm. broad, convex beneath, above flat or slightly concave, up-curved, apex acute and mucronate, surface texture crystalline in appearance, edges somewhat hyaline; inflorescences three or more, 10 to 15 cm. tall, simply racemose; lower bracts few, deltoid-lanceolate, acute, appressed except the outcurved tips, 10 to 12 mm. long; flowers six to ten; pedicels slender, to 6 mm. long, scarcely turbinate; sepals unequal, longest to 5 mm. long, spreading, ovate-deltoid to lanceolate, acute, much connate at base; corolla broadly conoid-urceolate, to 12 mm. long and 8 mm. in diameter at base; petals thin, scarcely keeled, erect but slightly spreading at tips, with shallow basal hollow; nectaries thin, very oblique. Flowers from March on. Description of material long cultivated in California gardens.

Color. Leaves lettuce-green but more or less pruinose and hence pale glaucous-green, mucro rarely somewhat reddish; peduncle old-rose; bracts as leaves, turning to old-rose in age; sepals old-rose to light grayish vinaceous; corolla begonia-rose to eosine-pink with bloom; petals at tips oural-green in bud, there becoming later pale yellow-orange; inside light cadmium; carpels baryta-yellow; styles cosse-green.

Type. Rose, 1901/960, in mountains above Pachuca (US, no. 399884).

Occurrence. Mexico. Hidalgo; widely cultivated at Pachuca, Omitlan, etc.

Collections. Mexico. Hidalgo: mountains near Pachuca, Rose, 01/960 (US, type). Cultivated: La Mortola, A. Berger in 1907 (NY, as E. cuspidata, annotated in Berger's hand "kann kaum richtig sein"); garden of Mrs. Jenkins, San Francisco, E. Walther in 1929 (CAS).

Remarks. When Oliveranthus Rose is merged with Echeveria DeCandolle, the specific name "elegans" has to be conserved for the species first receiving the epithet in the genus Echeveria. Oliveranthus elegans so becomes Echeveria harmsii Macbride and the new name, E. perelegans Berger is superfluous.

Under E. elegans, Poellnitz publishes the var. kesselringiana, which appears identical with a plant received from Mexico, without any definite locality, which herein is treated as a valid species, i.e., E. albicans. The latter differs from E. tlegans as stated under no. 18.

Closely related to E. elegans is E. potosina which differs in its narrower leaves thickest near apex and usually with a distinct purplish tinge in sun, its broader, obovate, scarcely spreading bracts, and its somewhat broader corolla.

Figure 39. 15. Echeveria elegans Rose. Plant of the type collection, flowering in Washington. Photograph from the U.S. National Herbarium, no. 190.

Dr. Rose's type material may have come from cultivated plants, for E. elegans is much cultivated in Mexico, as in Pachuca in front of my hotel, in various parks and squares, where it is often planted in fancy designs of alligators, tortoises, etc., a practice that may antedate the Conquest. One such famous planting is the spectacular "fence of conchas" near Omitlan (Cactus and Succ. Jour. Amer., vol. 6, p. 138, fig. A6, 1935), where I was informed that the ral home of E. elegans was near a prominent peak known as "Penas de Jacal."

Cultivated locally is a form with fasciated stems and crested rosettes; on reverting to type its leavers may retain for some time the biconvex shape they have in the crest. I record this as Echeveria elegans cultivar 'Crest'.

© Echeveria, 1972