STEYERMARKII  Standley, 1944

NOT IN CULTIVATION.

Series Gibbiflorae

Type : Steyermark 43145, Guatemala, Dept. Zacapa : On rocks, between Santa Rosalía and San Lorenzo, alt. 1200 - 1600 m, January 24, 1942.

Etymology : Named for the collector Julian A. Steyermark.

Distribution: Guatemala (Solola, San Marcos, Huehuetenango, Zacapa); epiphytic or on rocks, 1300 – 3700 m.

First Description in Latin by Standley in Field Museum of Natural History, Botany, 23(4): 160. 1944. The description below is the English version published in Fieldiana : Botany, 24: 410. 1946 :

Plants glabrous, acaulescent, solitary or cespitose.

The roots fibrous.

Leaves usually very numerous and forming a dense rosette, spreading or ascending, green, sometimes tinged with pink or purple, narrowly or very broadly oblong-spatulate, 2.5 - 6.5 cm long, 1 - 2 cm wide, rounded or very  obtuse at the apex and obtusely short-apiculate, carnose but not very thick, broadly cuneate at the base.

Scapes solitary or few, 5 - 20 cm high, the flowers few, short-racemose or subcorymbose; leaves of the scapes few and inserted near the base or more numerous and continued to the inflorescence, linear or oblong, the largest 2 cm long, obtuse, ascending.

Flowers 3 - 10, long-pedicellate, the pedicels slender, mostly 8 - 15 mm long, the bracts oblong or almost linear, much shorter than the pedicels; sepals unequal, green, fleshy, 5 - 8 mm long, oblong or ovate-oblong, obtuse, appressed or somewhat spreading, petals rose-red or vermilion, 8 - 11 mm long, lanceolate or narrowly lanceolate, erect but excurved at the apex, attenuate-acuminate, anthers ca 1.5 mm shorter than the petals, oblong-ovate, follicles 7 - 8 mm long, suberect, long-rostrate, brownish-red.

The plants placed here show a great deal of variation in leaf form but it is believed that all represent a single species. Further collections may possibly show that two or more species are represented but it is believed that all the apparent variations may be explained by moisture and exposure conditions. The corolla is variously described as vermilion throughout, rose-red or with petals reddish yellow edged with vermilion. The leaves may be either grass-green throughout or sometimes paler beneath, and often tinged with red or purple. The species is noteworthy for its small, few-flowered inflorescence and very long pedicels.

Note :

1. E. Walther's description of E. steyermarkii (Echeveria, 163-164, 1972) - "compiled from all available specimens / all available material which was collected at several distinct stations in Guatemala, often at considerably different elevations" - is of course of no use for a better understanding of this species. The same applies to the short description by M. Kimnach in the Illustrated Handbook of Succulent Plants, 2003, based on Walther. E. steyermarkii has been recollected at least once by D.E. Breedlove in 1965, however most probably it is not in cultivation.

2. The photos published by Pilbeam in The genus Echeveria, 264, figs. 376 & 377, 2008, of a plant which C.H. Uhl had provisionally labelled E. cf steyermarkii  represent E. guadeliana Véliz & García-Mendoza and not E. steyermarkii.

3. Why this species with an obviously unbranched inflorescence has been included in series Gibbiflorae is not plausible.