AGAVOIDES Lemaire, 1863 (engl./ fr.)
Synonyms :
Cotyledon agavoides (Lemaire) Baker 1869 / Urbinia agavoides (Lemaire) Rose 1903
Echeveria yuccoides Morren (1874)
Urbinia obscura Rose 1903 / Echeveria obscura (Rose) Berger (1930)
Series Urbiniae
Type : Not designated. Neotype (Iconotype) : Saunders, Refugium Botanicum 1, pl. 67. 1869.
Etymology : Resembling an Agave.
Distribution : Mexico (San Luis Potosí, Hidalgo, Guanajuato, Durango, Jalisco, Coahuila, Aguascalientes, Michoacán).
First Description by Charles Lemaire in L'Illustration Horticole 10: 78, 1863 (in French) :
Acaule ; feuilles très nombreuses, étalées-rosulées, fort épaisses, très dilatées à la base, étroitement imbriquées, puis atténuées-très aiguës ; d'un vert opalin ; fleurs d'un écarlate pâle. Magnifique. Mexique ; introduite depuis deux ans à peine ; forme d'une petite Agave.
Expanded description by Baker as Cotyledon agavoides in Saunders, Refugium Botanicum 1, nr. 25. 1869 :
Glabrous, not at all caulescent.
The leaves fifteen to twenty in a dense rosette, ovate, an inch and a half to two inches long by an inch broad half-way up, narrowed above to a rigid spiny point, the centre of the blade three-eighths of an inch thick, the upper surface slightly concave, the back much rounded, both sides a very pale glaucous-green, and distinctly reticulated with papillae, the old ones faintly tinged with red at the edge.
Flowering branch eight to twelve inches long, slender, with only a very few small bract-like leaves.
Flowers four to six in a sparse cyme. The bracts linear, very minute. The pedicels half to three-fourths of an inch long. Calyx under one-eighth of an inch deep, the lobes deltoid, equal, ascending. Corolla orange, half to five-eighths of an inch deep, scarcely at all pentagonal.
Cytology : n = 29, 58.
Note :
1. Echeveria agavoides is highly variable in habitat, occurring in at least 8 Mexican states. It is one of the hardiest echeverias, tolerating high summer temperatures as well as some winter frost.
2. Walther's text regarding E. agavoides (Echeveria, 81-84, 1972) is careless and therefore worthless.
Short description by M. Kimnach in Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants, 2003. (engl. / fr.)
Echeveria agavoides growing in shade in deciduous forest in Guanajuato, Mexico :
Echeveria agavoides poussant à l'ombre en forêt décidue, à Guanajuato, Mexique :
Plant in cultivation (from Hidalgo) :
Photos Thomas Delange