Echeveria elegans

Echeveria elegans
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Order: Saxifragales
Family: Crassulaceae
Genus: Echeveria
Species:
E. elegans
Binomial name
Echeveria elegans
Synonyms
  • Oliverella elegans Rose, 1903[2]

Echeveria elegans, the Mexican snow ball, God's Throne, Mexican gem or white Mexican rose is a species of flowering plant in the family Crassulaceae, native to semi-desert habitats in Mexico.

Description

Echeveria elegans is a succulent evergreen perennial growing to 5–10 cm (2–4 in) tall by 50 cm (20 in) wide, with tight rosettes of pale green-blue fleshy leaves, bearing 25 cm (10 in) long slender pink stalks of pink flowers with yellow tips in winter and spring.[3]

Cultivation

Echeveria elegans is cultivated as an ornamental plant for rock gardens planting, or as a potted plant. It thrives in subtropical climates, such as Southern California.

It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.[4]

Like others of its kind, it produces multiple offsets which can be separated from the parents in spring, and grown separately - hence the common name "hen and chicks", applied to several species within the genus Echeveria.[3]

Flowers of echeveria elegans.

Etymology

Echeveria is named for Atanasio Echeverría y Godoy, a botanical illustrator who contributed to Flora Mexicana.[5]

Elegans means 'elegant' or 'graceful'.[5]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Echeveria elegans.
Wikispecies has information related to Echeveria elegans.
  1. ^ Rose, J.N. 1905. North American Flora. New York Botanical Garden 22: 22
  2. ^ Rose, Bull. New York Bot. Gard. 3: 2. 1903
  3. ^ a b RHS A-Z encyclopedia of garden plants. United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. 2008. p. 1136. ISBN 978-1405332965.
  4. ^ "Echeveria elegans". Royal Horticultural Society. Archived from the original on 6 June 2013. Retrieved 25 July 2013.
  5. ^ a b Gledhill, David (2008). "The Names of Plants". Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521866453 (hardback), ISBN 9780521685535 (paperback). pp. 149, 151
  • Attila Kapitany, (2009). Knowing Echeverias, Cactus and Succulent Journal, Volume 81 Issue 2.


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