Echeveria secunda Booth
hen and chickens echeveria
Glabrous, perennial herb, either acaulous or with a very short thick stem. Rosettes of lvs (2)-3-7-(13) cm across, with lvs ascending to same level. Lvs to 6.5 × c. 2.3 cm, 2-3 mm thick, ± broadly obovate-spathulate, strongly glaucous, slightly concave above and slightly keeled beneath; apex apiculate, red to pink. Flowering stems lateral, arising from between basal lvs, usually 7-18 cm high, consisting of a single racemose cyme of secund fls, curving downwards at first, becoming erect later, with glaucous bloom. Fls with ovate- lanceolate bracts nearly 1 cm long; pedicels c. 5 mm long at anthesis. Sepals free, unequal, 4-8 mm long, triangular or triangular-lanceolate, pinkish or greenish, with glaucous bloom, acute. Petals 11-13 × c. 3 mm, lightly cohering below and forming a flask-shaped corolla, free and recurved towards apex, narrowly oblong-elliptic or linear-oblong, the lower part red, the upper yellow. Stamens 5-8 mm long, pale yellow or whitish. Carpels (including styles) 5-7 mm long; styles green. Scales c. 1.5 mm wide, lunate or semi-lunate, thick. Capsules narrowly triangular-ovoid. Mature seeds not seen.
N.: Rangitoto Id and Glen Eden (Auckland); S.: Birdlings Flat, Port Hills and Diamond Harbour (Canterbury).
Mexico 1959
Rock walls and banks, stony wayside places.
FL Nov-Mar.
Hen and chickens echeveria is very commonly cultivated in pots, on rock walls and embankments, and as an edging around borders. The freely-produced offsets become detached easily and plants thus occasionally become established outside gardens. Many cultivated plants correspond to var. elegans (Baker) Otto, which has larger and more glaucous lvs, but it is impossible to ascertain whether or not any dried specimens represent this var.
