Dudleya lanceolata
Dudleya farinosa
lance-leaf dudleya, lanceleaf liveforever, Southern California dudleya
bluff lettuce, powdery dudleya, powdery liveforever, sea lettuce
simple or apically branched and cespitose, 1–5 × 1–3 cm, axillary branches absent.
(in age decumbent or pendent), branching apically, (cespitose), 10–60 × 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.
rosettes (1–)3–5, not in clumps, 15–30-leaved, 4–10 cm diam.;
blade gray-green, becoming reddish, ovate-oblong, 2.5–6 × 1–2.5 cm, 3–6 mm thick, base 1–2.5 cm wide, apex acute, surfaces sometimes farinose, not 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.
cyme 3–5-branched, compact, flat-topped;
branches not twisted (flowers on topside), simple or bifurcate, (1–4 cm wide);
cincinni 3–5, 3–11-flowered, circinate, 1–3.5 cm;
floral shoots 10–35 × 0.3–1 cm;
leaves 20–35, spreading, cordate-ovate, 10–25 × 10–20 mm, apex acute.
erect, not bent in fruit, 2–6(–12) mm.
erect, not bent in fruit, mostly 1–3 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.
calyx 5–8 × 5–6 mm;
corolla loosely tubular, not tightly 5-gonal, free margins of each petal usually not connivent to adjacent petals;
petals connate 1–2 mm, pale yellow, 10–14 × 3–4 mm, apex acute to obtuse, tips often outcurved;
pistils connivent, erect.
follicles erect.
follicles erect.
= 68.
= 34.
Dudleya lanceolata
Dudleya farinosa
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.)
Plants of Dudleya farinosa in southern Oregon, which is the northern part of the range (D. septentrionalis), are very similar to those at the type locality, on the Monterey Peninsula; in those areas D. farinosa appears to be the only diploid species. Plants of the intermediate coast (such as D. eastwoodiae), also diploid, are somewhat different and in some ways seem to approach the diploid D. cymosa, which does reach the coast there.
The petals of Dudleya are convolute, each petal has one edge exposed and the other covered by the next petal. Generally in subg. Dudleya each petal is somewhat folded along the midline, with its exposed edge tightly connivent to the inner edge of the next petal, the petals together forming a tight pentagonal tube. In typical D. farinosa, each petal is less folded and more nearly flat, its exposed edge usually not connivent to the adjacent petal but somewhat separated from it, and the corolla thus more loosely tubular. In the northern part of the range, the corolla is often nonconvolute, a rare exception to the typical condition in the genus.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
CA
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist
USDA Plants Database
OR
Flora NW
PNW Herbaria
