AMOENA  De Smet, 1875   (engl./ fr.)

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.

Short description by M. Kimnach in Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants, 2003. engl. / fr.

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.

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

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