7.27.2010

Flora Mexicana

One of the mexican workers at the greenhouse I was working at this summer had a wealth of information about the succulent plant I'd previously only known as "Hens and Chicks".  

One of the most common and easy to grow varieties of the group known as Echeveria, the particular species E. elegans (pictured here) is also known as Mexican Snowball or Mexican White Rose because of its waxy greyish green (white) rosettes of succulent leaflets.  

It was discovered in the mountains of the province of Hidalgo by Joseph Nelson Rose in 1905 on one of his many field trips to San Luis Potosi and Queretaro.  I think if I had been born in the previous century I'd have been a roving, adventuring botanist on a quest to discover new species! 

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