GOLDIANA   Walther 1959

Synonym : Echeveria halbingeri var. goldiana  Kimnach (1997)  See Note 3.  below.

Series Urbiniae

Type : CAS 413601 (not 413901 as indicated in the Spanish First Description).

Etymology : Named for Dudley B. Gold who according to Walther had collected the plant - see Note 1. below.

Distribution : Not known.

First Description (in Spanish) by Walther in Cactáceas y Suculentas Mexicanas 4: 27. 1959 :

Plant glabrous, stemless, with offsets none or produced belatedly.

Rosettes densely leafy.

Leaves to 40 or more, broadly obovate-cuneate, very turgid, beneath rounded and not keeled, above shallowly convex and only slightly flattened near apex, the latter truncate and minutely mucronate, to 4 cm long, 25 mm wide near apex, less than 15 mm broad at base, lettuce green to dull light coffee-coloured.

Inflorescences 2 - 3, each a simple, secund raceme, peduncle to 40 cm tall, slender, erect, with 10 - 12 bracts, these linear-lanceolate, acuminate, flat above, beneath rounded, slightly spreading to recurved, to 14 mm long, pedicels slender, to 15 mm long, somewhat turbinate below calyx.

Flowers 8 - 10, strongly nodding in bud, sepals very unequal, longest to 10 mm long and lanceolate, others much shorter, deltoid, acute, lettuce green to dull light coffee coloured, corolla conoid-urceolate, 13 mm long and to 9 mm broad near base, only 4 mm in diameter at mouth, begonia-rose at base, greenish at apex, petals not keeled and only slightly hollowed within base, with small subulate apiculus below tips, carpels 7 mm long, nectaries to 2 mm broad, reniform, oblique.

Note :

1. Walther indicated that he had got this plant from Dudley B. Gold who would have collected it originally near Valle de Bravo, Estado de México. However Mr Gold disclaimed any knowledge of E. goldiana saying that it must have been collected by somebody else and that the locality very likely is wrong. At any rate, the plant has never been found near the Valle de Bravo.

2. In a letter of 1 July 1963 to Reid Moran, Kimnach "called attention to the similarity of this plant to E. sanchez-mejoradae [ > in fact the wrongly called E. sanchez-mejoradae , now E. simulans ]. He found one green and so did I", wrote Moran. This comparison is quite appropriate because - apart from the green (not glaucous) colour of the leaves - the description of E. goldiana and the black-and-white photos are a good match for E. simulans. So in all likelihood E. goldiana should be placed in the synonymy of E. simulans. 

3. In contradiction to his appropriate identification in 1963, also supported by Moran, in Haseltonia 5, 1997, Kimnach reduced E. goldiana  Walther to a variety of E. halbingeri  Walther, stating : "This taxon seems very close to E. halbingeri, differing mainly in its green leaves, and seems best considered as one of its varieties". A comparison of the descriptions of E. goldiana and E. halbingeri and of the photos of the two plants published in Walther, Echeveria, 117 & 121, 1972, reveals conspicuous differences between the two plants regarding the shape of the leaves as well as the shape of the flowers. Apparently Kimnach had forgotten that previously he had pointed out - rightly - the similaritiy of E. goldiana and the - wrongly called - E. sanchez-mejoradae. Kimnach's re-combination does not make sense.