HETEROSEPALA Rose, 1903
Synonyms :
Pachyphytum heterosepalum (Rose) Walther (1935)
Pachyphytum chloranthum Walther (1931)
Echeveria viridiflora Rose ms ex von Poellnitz (1936)
Series Chloranthae
Type : Pringle 7499, collected on calcareous hills near Tehuacan, Puebla, August 1897. US 316777.
Etymology : For the unequal size of the sepals.
Distribution : Mexico (Puebla, Oaxaca). "The species occurs on the dry western side of the eastern mountains from near Alchichica in eastern Puebla south to the Oaxaca border and possibly beyond" (Uhl, Haseltonia 6).
First Description by Rose in Bulletin of the New York Botanical Garden 3:8/9. 1903 :
Acaulescent.
Basal leaves forming a dense rosette, obovate, somewhat acuminate, tipped with a long mucro, glabrous, perhaps also glaucous, 3 cm long (in specimens seen).
Leaves on lower part of flowering branches large, above somewhat reduced.
Inflorescence a secund raceme, 12 – 15-flowered, at first nodding ; lower pedicels longer, 6 – 7 mm long ; bractlets ascending.
Sepals ovate, more or less united at base, very unequal, the longer ones 6 – 7 mm long ; corolla reddish, short and broad, 8 – 9 mm long.
A more detailed description of a plant collected N of Santiago Acatepec, Puebla, by Reid Moran (Moran & Kimnach 7728) :
Rosette 5 cm wide, sessile, of ca 40 leaves.
Leaves rhombic, oblanceolate, acuminate, glaucous, becoming reddish, to 2.5 cm long, 9.5 mm wide, 3.5 mm thick.
Floral stem erect, stocky, 15 cm to first flower, 4 mm thick at the base, deep pink above, with ca 40 leaves below the inflorescence, these crowded toward the base, becoming more scattered above. Leaves ascending, glaucous, becoming reddish, elliptic, acute and apiculate, spurred, the middle ones largest, to 22 x 8 x 4 mm, the upper and lower scarcely smaller.
Inflorescence a single cincinnus, circinate, becoming erect, with 9 buds & flowers. Bracts one per flower, on the under side of the axis, by their position seeming to subtend each continuation of the axis, elliptic, acute and apiculate, the lowest 10 x 3 mm. Pedicels ca 2 mm thick, the lowest 5 mm long, the second ca 2.5 mm.
Flowers : Calyx disk 7 mm wide, umbilicate, the segments ascending, unequal, the two upper slightly smaller, the lower inner smallest, triangular, ca 1.5 – 2 mm long. Corolla ca asphodel green within, glaucous and near elf green without, in bud subglobular-pentagonal, apiculate, in flower broadly ovoid-pentagonal, 10 - 11 mm long, 9 – 10 mm wide at the base, 7 mm wide at the apex, opening slowly over several days. Segments ovate, acute and apiculate, connate ca 4.5 mm, cochleate, 5 mm wide, the nectar pit ca 2.5 mm long and wide, the ‘appendages’ on either side of the channel just above the nectar pit, each a rounded protuberance da 1.2 mm long, 0.9 mm wide and 0.3 mm high.
Two photos of this plant in Walther, Echeveria, 238 & 242, 1972.
Note :
The so-called petal appendages are similar to those in genus Pachyphytum, however mostly smaller and occasional.
Plants in habitat, Mexico :
Plantes dans l'habitat au Mexique :