CRENULATA Rose, 1911 (engl./ fr.)
Series Gibbiflorae
Type : Rose & Painter 797, collected near Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, September 1903. US 454957.
Etymology : "crenulate" = margins with small broadish rounded teeth, minutely notched. However the description does not mention this for the leaf margins ....
Distribution : Mexico (Cuernavaca, Morelos)
First Description by Rose in Contributions from the United States National Herbarium 13: 295. 1911 :
Stem : Caulescent, the stem in cultivated specimens short but in wild specimens much elongated and enlarged.
Leaves : Basal leaves in the wild plant broadly obovate, more than 30 cm long, 15 cm broad, rounded at apex, tapering at base into a very distinct petiole; pale green, a little glaucous, the margin wavy and purplish red.
Inflorescence : Bracts acute, ovate to spatulate, tapering into a stout, thick petiole; inflorescence a short panicle, the lateral branches short, few-flowered, the bract instead of subtending the branch usually carried up for some distance on the peduncle.
Flowers : Sepals widely spreading, very unequal, acute, corolla 15 mm long, strongly angled, yellowish red, petals acute.
Note :
1. The description in IHSP, 2003, is not correct, it is the summary of E. Walther's description of a plant he himself called "E. crenulata" but which is very different from the plant Rose has described.
2. The description cited by Pilbeam, The genus Echeveria, 2008, is also based on the description by E. Walther and therefore also not correct.
Moreover the two photos published on page 94, Fig. 93 & Fig. 94, have nothing to do with E. crenulata - Fig. 93 most likely shows one of the wavy leaved Californian hybrids and Fig. 94 shows flowers of a plant with unknown origin from the Munich Botanical Garden.
3. Charles Uhl anyway questions the validity of this species, in Haseltonia 9, p. 129, 2002, he writes:
“The type is from a barranca near Cuernavaca in an area where the Gibbiflorae vary greatly in form and ploidy, and from where several other species were named. This large-leaved species is intermediate between E. gibbiflora, of which the tetraploid (n = 54) is common in the area, and E. fulgens, which is common just to the west. One or more of the collections that I list under those names might possibly belong with E. crenulata, but I question its validity as a species.”
4. The photos on www.crassulaceae.com have nothing to do with E. crenulata Rose either.
See also : Echeveria crenulata Rose, 1911 - questioned