AMOENA  De Smet, 1875

Synonyms :

Echeveria pusilla  Berger (1904)
Echeveria purpusii  Britton (1905) (nom. illeg., Art. 53.1)
Echeveria microcalyx  Britton & Rose (1911)

Series Paniculatae

Type : Not designated. Neotype (Iconotype) Fig. 30 Echeveria pusilla in Gartenflora, 53: 206, 1904. 

Etymology : Latin adjective amoenus = beautiful, pleasing.

Distribution Mexico (Morelos, Puebla, Veracruz).

First Description by L. de Smet, catalogue  of 1875 (in French) :

Cette charmante plante, atteignant à peine 3 ou 4 pouces de hauteur, forme de très-jolies touffes trapues et serrées, à branches nombreuses et très-rapprochées.

Feuilles petites, ovales, de couleur ardoise pâle à reflet rosâtre.

Fleurs rouge-orangé.

Introduite du Mexique en 1874.

English description by Britton & Rose (in North American Flora, 22: 26, 1905) :

Acaulescent or nearly so, with numerous short offsets, pinkish-pruinose.

Leaves in small but dense rosettes, 2 cm long or less, 6 - 8 mm wide, thick, spatulate-oblanceolate, acute.

Flowering branches slender, ascending, 10 - 20 cm long, their tips drooping at anthesis, their leaves oblong to oblanceolate, 1 cm long or less, blunt, readily falling away; flowers 1 - 8; pedicels slender, 1 - 2 cm long.

Calyx-lobes orbicular, about 1.5 mm broad, appressed to the base of the corolla; corolla coral-red, 8 - 10 mm long, 4 mm thick, the lobes twice as long as the tube, their tips somewhat spreading, acute.

Cytology : n = 33, 66.

Note :

E. Walther's description of E. amoena (Echeveria, p. 67ff, 1972) is of no use because made from locally grown plants with unknown origin, and accordingly also Kimnach's summary in the Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants, 2003, based on Walther.

Plant in habitat, Laguna de Aljojuca, Puebla, Mexico :

Plante dans l'habitat, Laguna de Aljojuca, Puebla, Mexique :