Dudleya lanceolata
Dudleya brevifolia
lance-leaf dudleya, lanceleaf liveforever, Southern California dudleya
short leaf dudleya
simple or apically branched and cespitose, 1–5 × 1–3 cm, axillary branches absent.
rosettes 1–7, not in clumps, 10–25(–30)-leaved, 3–25 cm diam.;
blade green, oblong-lanceolate, 4–30 × 0.5–4 cm, 1.5–6 mm thick, base 1–3 cm wide, apex acute to acuminate, surfaces not farinose, sometimes glaucous.
5–15, (often buried in soil except for adaxial surface of each leaf blade, rarely clavate, mostly sharply divided into blade and petiole, 7–15 mm);
petiole 3–10 mm wide, to 1/7 as wide as blade;
blade yellow-green, ovate to orbiculate or reniform, 0.2–0.7 cm × 2–7 mm, 2–4 mm thick, base 1–2 mm wide, apex rounded (margins often subglobular), surfaces somewhat glaucous.
cyme mostly 2–3-branched, obpyramidal;
branches not twisted (flowers on topside), simple or 1-times bifurcate, (5–16 cm diam.);
cincinni 2–3, 2–20-flowered, circinate, 2–15(–25) cm;
floral shoots 15–90(–120) × 0.3–1.2 cm;
leaves 18–40, spreading to ascending, triangular-lanceolate to -ovate, 10–30(–50) × 3–18 mm, apex acute, in age straight and erect to spreading.
cincinni 3–10-flowered, 1–4 cm;
floral shoots 2–11 cm × 0.5–1 mm at base, to 2.5 mm wide near middle;
leaves 10–20, spreading, blade triangular-ovate to suborbiculate or reniform, 0.2–1 cm × 2.5–8 mm, 2–6 mm thick, apex obtuse.
erect, not bent in fruit, 2–6(–12) mm.
calyx 4–7 × 5–8 mm;
petals connate 1–2 mm, bright yellow or usually red or red-flushed or -marked abaxially, greenish to orange-yellow adaxially, 10–16 × 2.5–5 mm, apex acute, tips slightly outcurved;
pistils connivent, erect.
with musky, sweet odor;
petals connate 0.7 mm, spreading from near middle, white, pinkish on keel and yellowish toward base, often red-lineolate, elliptic, 5–8.5 × 2–3.5 mm, apex subobtuse, corolla 8–15 mm diam.;
pistils connivent or separate, erect at anthesis;
ovary 2–4 mm;
styles 1–1.5 mm.
follicles erect.
elongate and uncormlike, 1.5–3.5 cm × 1–6 mm.
widespreading, adaxial margins nearly horizontal.
= 68.
= 34.
Dudleya lanceolata
Dudleya brevifolia
Dudleya lanceolata is wide-ranging, from Monterey and western Kern counties southward through San Diego County, variable, and ill-defined. It varies locally in size of parts and in flower color but does not seem easily divisible into smaller units. N. L. Britton and J. N. Rose (1903, 1905) proposed seven additional species of southern California or of unstated origin that seem best included here. On the basis of 18 or more well-scattered collections, it is tetraploid; it seems best defined partly on that basis. Similar plants from Aliso Canyon, Orange County, are octoploid (C. H. Uhl and R. V. Moran 1953, as D. sp. aff. D. lanceolata); this is one of several scattered coastal populations with the caudex elongate. Another is D. elongata Rose, from near San Pedro, of which later collections are tetraploid.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Of conservation concern.
Dudleya brevifolia is rare and grows in thin, sandy soil strewn with small, reddish brown iron concretions, on reddish sandstone capping the Linda Vista Terrace in western San Diego County, as at Torrey Pines State Park. Usually, it is in openings in the chaparral nearly bare of other plants. Even within this unique habitat, the colonies are few and local, not found in seemingly identical places nearby. At one place, it grew formerly in depressions in the mesa, crowded together in a sod of Selaginella cinerascens A. A. Eaton, with Crassula connata. Although reported from seven places, it is evidently extinct at some because of urbanization; it is considered seriously threatened (California Native Plant Society, http://cnps.web.aplus.net/cgi-bin/inv/inventory.cgi).
Dudleya brevifolia shows the ultimate in leaf reduction within the genus, having the smallest leaves and of the most divergent and remarkable leaf type. M. Dodero (1996) noted that it is paedomorphic, retaining in adult leaves the form seen throughout the subgenus in juvenile leaves. It hybridizes in nature with D. edulis (R. V. Moran 1951).
Dudleya brevifolia is in the Center for Plant Conservation’s National Collection of Endangered Plants.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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