Echeveria

CORALLINA  Alexander, 1941

REINSTATED AS A DISTINCT SPECIES.

Series Mucronatae

 

Type :  T. MacDougall B.4, collected south of Nuevo Zapaluta (La Trinitaria), Chiapas, Mexico, winter 1938-39.

 

Etymology : Named for the flower colour.

 

Distribution : Mexico (Chiapas).

 

First Description by Alexander in Cactus and Succulent Journal (US) 13(8): 135-136. 1941 :

 

Plant short-caulescent.

 

Stem 2 - 3 cm long, eventually branching below.

 

Leaves in a loose terminal rosette, oblanceolate, abruptly acute, 6 - 8 cm long, 15 - 16 mm broad, pale green with brownish purple margins and red apiculus, the whole leaf frequently shaded with brownish pink, very glaucous, the glaucescence producing a soft pinkish tone to the foliage.

 

Inflorescence 40 - 50 cm tall, erect, with bracts similar to the leaves but more green and reduced upwards, the flowering portion roseate-salmon with a glaucous overcast.

 

Flowers 20 - 25, multilaterally arranged, sessile or on 1 mm pedicels which are oblique bulges off the rachis, calyx slate blue-green, the tube 0.5 mm long, the lobes appressed to the corolla, ovate to ovate-lanceolate, acute, very unequal, the two longest 7 mm long, the intermediate 6 mm long, the two shortest 4 mm long, corolla oblong-conical, 14 mm long, coral red, the petals 3 mm wide with recurved-spreading tips, stamens opposite the petals 6 mm long, the filament terete or nearly so, scarcely enlarged at the base, anthers 1.5 mm long....

A rather unattractive plant, but beautiful in flower because of the unusual pastel coloring of the inflorescence.

Related to E. mucronata, differing principally in its strongly glaucous character and closely appressed calyx-lobes.

 

Note :

Alexander compared E. corallina with E. mucronata. Nonetheless Walther considered it synonymous with E. sessiliflora; he actually copied Alexander's description of E. corallina and published it as the description for E. sessiliflora (Walther, Echeveria, p. 384, 1972). Thomas MacDougall, the collector of the plant, clearly disagreed with Walther and stated : "It is unfortunate that Walther did not have access to types at the N.Y.B.G. As one result, we do not agree that E. sessiliflora and E. corallina are the same" (book review of Walther's Echeveria). Because Kimnach, responsible for Genus Echeveria in the Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants, did not question the publications in Walther's posthumous book Echeveria (1972) this error has been perpetuated. Herewith it is corrected - E. corallina is reinstated as a distinct species.

Published in Crassulacea No. 5, 29. Sept. 2017 

 

Illustration published with the First Description by Alexander in Cactus & Succulent Journal US 13(8): 134. 1941.

In habitat, Trinitaria, Chiapas :

In cultivation :

Photos Gerhard Köhres

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