OLIVACEA  Moran, 1991  (engl./ fr.)

Series Racemosae

Type : Macdougall, collected January 1963, Cerro San Pedro, 1150 m, Tehuantepec, Oaxaca.

Etymology : Lat. olivaceus = olive-brown, for the leaf colour.

Distribution : Mexico (Oaxaca : Tehuantepec)

Description by Reid Moran from a plant received from Tom MacDougall (1963) :

Caudex erect, ca 2 cm high, 10 mm thick.

Rosette flattish, 10 cm wide of 12 leaves.

Rosette leaves crowded, elliptic, obtuse, apiculate, 5 – 6 cm long, 2 – 3 cm wide, 10 – 12 mm wide at the base, 4 mm thick, broadly and shallowly channeled ventrally, near olive green but slightly reddish, the margins acute, the surface and the margins finely low-papillose.

Floral stem erect from the start, 22 cm tall incl. inflorescence, 7 mm thick, light green below, pale green, almost white, above, or slightly pinkish, bare in the lower ca 1 cm with 25 leaves crowded in the next 6 cm to the base of the inflorescence, forming almost a second rosette.

Stem leaves ascending and subventrally attached but curving outward with the tips horizontal or even deflexed, similar to the rosette leaves but short-spurred, the largest ca 6 cm long, 23 mm wide above, 10 mm wide at the base, and 4 mm thick, the upper decreasing rapidly towards the bracts.

Inflorescence a raceme now 15 cm high, with about 40 bracts and potentially as many flowers though a few are missing. Bracts ascending at ca 45° or more, oblong-oblanceolate, acute and apiculate, short-spurred the largest (near middle of inflorescence) to 21 x 7 x 2 mm, slightly convex ventrally, the margins acute. Pedicels ascending at ca 60° above the horizontal, pinkish, 6 – 14 mm long, ca 1.25 mm thick, slightly thicker above, the bracteoles near or below the middle, linear-oblanceolate, acute, to 6 x 1 mm.

Calyx disk ca 6 mm wide, subumbilicate, slightly grooved below the sinuses, the segments ascending or nearly erect but not appressed against the corolla, unequal, the smaller narrowly triangular-ovate, acute, ca 5 x 3 x 1.5 mm, the larger triangular-lanceolate, acute, ca 8 – 9 x 4 x 2 mm. Corolla near watermelon pink, slightly glaucous, 12 mm long, 8 mm wide at the base, 4 mm wide at the apex, pyramidal with the keels nearly straight, the sides shallowly channeled, the segments ca 4 mm wide, connate ca 2 mm.

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

Note :

The photos published on

www.crassulaceae.com

show an entirely different plant - Mexican botanists apparently ignore the description of this species completely.

Also the photo in Pilbeam, Echeveria, Fig. 249, p. 190, is wrong, this is E. tencho.

In habitat in Oaxaca :

Photos Gerhard Köhres