RAUSCHII   van Keppel, 1969

REINSTATED AS A DISTINCT SPECIES. 

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

Type : van Vliet nr. 8 (van Keppel 6852), 15 km NW from Sucre, Bolivia, 2800 m, collected May 29, 1968.

Etymology : Named for Walter Rausch, Austrian Lobivia and Rebutia specialist.

Distribution : Bolivia (Dept. Chiquisaca, Sucre), growing in cracks and hollows filled with humus and / or limestone on very steep, often unreachable slopes, mostly in full sun for some hours each day.

First Description by van Keppel in Cactus and Succulent Journal Great Britain 24(4): 91. 1969 :

Habit caulescent.

Stems short, ca 5 cm long, 1 - 2 cm thick, erect, or very thin, longer and decumbent; branching at base.

Rosette with 10 - 15 closely arranged leaves, 5 - 12 cm diameter.

Leaves fleshy, oblong-oblanceolate to ovate-deltoid, acute, with a red mucro, upper part flat to concave, backside convex, faintly keeled, colour fresh green, not glaucous, with strong dark red edges, 4 - 7 cm long, 8 - 15 mm broad.

Floral stems reddish, erect, 10 - 25 cm long, 2 - 4 mm broad at base; inflorescence part a single, equilateral raceme ca 10 cm long with 5 - 10 spreading to ascending leaves below, the largest 3 - 4 cm long, oblong, concave; bracts linear-oblong, small, scarcely spurred.

Flowers 7 - 20, on reddish, erect, pedicels up to 2 cm long with 2 filmy bracteoles which soon wither; sepals horizontally spreading to ascending, green, linear-oblong, unequal, 3 - 10 mm long; corolla orange to orange-red, orange-yellow within with yellow edges; petals ca 10 mm long, 6 mm broad at the base, sharply pentagonal, 2 - 3 mm wide at the apex, tips recurved, sharply keeled dorsally; carpels green.

Flowering time in September to October.

Cytology : n = ~100.

Note :

Kimnach (2003) has reduced Echeveria rauschii to a synonym of E. whitei. In view of the very different chromosome numbers - E. whitei n = 150 ± 4, E. rauschii n = ~100 - published by Ch. Uhl in Haseltonia 13, 2007, this is no longer justifiable and therefore E. rauschii is reinstated as species.