MORANII  Walther, 1972  (engl./ fr.)

Synonym : Echeveria proxima  Walther (1972)

Series Racemosae 

Type : Moran 6388, Encampamento Agua Blanca, 3 miles north of Totolapan, Oaxaca, Mexico, at 1150 m, groing on both north and south slopes of a dry canyon.

Etymology : Named for its discoverer, Reid Moran.

Distribution : Mexico (Oaxaca : North of Totolapan).

First Description by Walther in Echeveria p. 347, 1972 :

Glabrous.

Stem short, 2 to 3 cm tall, to 8 mm thick, simple or ultimately branching below, with fibrous roots.

Leaves rosulate, to 25 or more, erect to spreading, obovate-cuneate, to 6 cm long, 3 cm broad, narrowed to 10 mm at base, 9 mm thick near middle, upcurved, shallowly concave above, beneath rounded and keeled, mucronate at the somewhat incurved tips, epidermis of young leaves glistening-crystalline and appearing papillose, the lenticular-hemispheric papillae appear to be solid, colour greyish green, margins, mucro and scattered spots on lower surface maroon, with numerous sub-epidermal, anthocyan-containing idioblasts scattered in the parenchyma just below the upper surface.

Inflorescences one or two, racemose, equilateral or unilateral, 20 to 30 (to 50) cm tall, peduncle slender, flexuous, laxly ascending, to 4 mm thick at base, bracts numerous, strongly ascending, elliptic-oblong, to 3 cm long, 10 mm broad, nearly flat above, beneath rounded and faintly keeled, greyish, basal spur blunt, hyaline, raceme to 20 cm long, with about 15 nodding flowers, pedicels slender, 1 mm thick, to 10 mm long, with two minute, linear bractlets, not thickened near apex.

Flowers : Sepals appressed, subequal, longest 4 mm long, ovate-deltoide, acutish, thick, very turgid at base, dark greyish green to pale bluish-grey,  strongly connate, with one or two basal sutures visible, their thick bases form an umbilicate depression for reception of the slender pedicel, corolla conoid-cylindroid, bluntly pentagonal, to 13 mm long, 9 mm in diameter near base, 4 mm or more in diameter at mouth, peach-red to coral-red or scarlet, petals inside pale orange, bluntly keeled, with basal hollow, at apex rather blunt, carpels 8 mm long, pale yellow below, pale green above, nectaries transversely lunate-reniform, to 3 mm wide, whitish.

Flowering time from June on.

Cytology : n = 24

Distinct by its nearly horizontal inflorescence and pendent flowers.

Link to a summary of the above description in English and French.

Note : 

Echeveria moranii has been collected in 1957 by Reid Moran 5 km north of Totolapan at about 1150 m on north and south slopes of a small arroyo. E. proxima, listed as a synonym of E. moranii, has been collected by Tom MacDougall in the same year 15 km east of Totolapan - less than 20 km apart in the same type of terrain and at about the same elevation. Walther described it as a species distinct from E. moranii. However subsequent collections by MacDougall proved that E. proxima is too close to E. moranii and cannot be maintained, in fact Walther had described individual plants instead of species.