Dudleya lanceolata
Dudleya pulverulenta
lance-leaf dudleya, lanceleaf liveforever, Southern California dudleya
chalk dudleya, chalk liveforever
simple or apically branched and cespitose, 1–5 × 1–3 cm, axillary branches absent.
(becoming decumbent), simple, to 50 × 4–10 cm, (densely covered proximally with old leaves), 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 solitary, not in clumps, 30–80-leaved, 25–60 cm diam.;
blade chalky white, oblong to oblong-oblanceolate, widest at base or in distal 1/3, 8–25(–30) × 3–10[–13] cm, 3–10 mm thick, base 3–8 cm wide, apex acuminate to cuspidate, surfaces puberulent, chalky.
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 mostly densely 2–5-branched, obpyramidal to cylindric;
branches twisted at base (flowers on underside), simple or 1 times bifurcate;
cincinni 2–5, (in age straight and spreading to erect), 10–30-flowered, circinate, 10–50 cm;
floral shoots 30–100[–150] × 0.5–2 cm;
leaves 20–70, spreading to deflexed, (becoming red), cordate-ovate to suborbiculate, 20–50 × 15–30 mm, apex acuminate.
erect, not bent in fruit, 2–6(–12) mm.
pendent or declined, in age sharply bending near middle to bring fruits ± erect, 10–35 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 5–9 × 5–8 mm;
petals connate 6–10 mm, red, 11–19 × 2–4.5 mm, apex acute to obtuse, tips erect;
pistils connivent, erect.
follicles erect.
follicles erect.
= 68.
= 34.
Dudleya lanceolata
Dudleya pulverulenta
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.)
Dudleya pulverulenta is one of the largest and most distinctive species of the genus, easily recognized from a distance, even without flowers. All parts of the flowering shoot often are farinose. It has the widest range of any dudleya, over 1000 kilometers, from Monterey County to the Sierra San Borja in north-central Baja California. It is a beautiful plant, much admired but less easily grown than some others.
Hummingbirds often visit Dudleya pulverulenta, hovering beneath the pendent flowers and thrusting their bills up into them for nectar. The species shows a syndrome of traits that K. A. Grant and V. Grant (1968) found in hummingbird-pollinated plants of western North America: open inflorescence; pendent flowers on long, slender pedicels; long red corolla with long tube; and (as shown by G. A. Levin and T. W. Mulroy 1985) high nectar yield. Although hummingbirds also visit other species of the genus, this one seems especially adapted to them as pollinators, having, for example, about the longest corolla, with the longest tube, and the highest nectar output. While most other dudleyas have flowers erect along the adaxial side of the cincinnal branch, here the young branch twists at the base, putting the flowers on the abaxial or outer side, where they are declined or pendent. After flowering, each pedicel bends sharply to bring the fruit erect, as it is in other species. This syndrome is nearly unique to D. pulverulenta and the related D. anthonyi, of northern Baja California, although variously approached in forms of the related and intergrading D. arizonica.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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