Dudleya edulis (Nutt.) Moran

Fingertips, Ladies Fingers, Mission Lettuce, fingertips

Climate known 58 photographs Cactus or succulent

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Dudleya edulis is a species of perennial, succulent flowering plant of the Crassulaceae, known by the common names fingertips, lady-fingers, mission lettuce, or simply the San Diego dudleya. The common name "fingertips" denotes the finger-like shape of the leaves; the specific epithet edulis refers to the Kumeyaay people's traditional foraging and consumption of the plant's young scapes. Dudleya edulis is native to the dry, coastal cliffs and chaparral hills of Southern California and northern Baja California, where it has adapted to absorb as much moisture as possible from the nightly fog and marine layer which forms over the Pacific Ocean and gradually moves slightly inland, typically covering all plants and stationary objects in dew. In addition to its inherent drought-tolerance and xeric qualities, this species is also highly salt-tolerant, as it grows almost exclusively facing the ocean, often in exposed settings where it is subjected to regular periods of extreme wind and weather. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Dudleya edulis”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Dudleya

Dudleya, commonly known as liveforevers, is a genus of rosette-forming succulent plants in the stonecrop family, Crassulaceae, consisting of about ~70 taxa found in southwestern North America and Guadalupe Island. The genus is very morphologically diverse, with species ranging from large evergreen plants to tiny deciduous geophytic plants. The flowers of Dudleya have parts numbered in fives, with the petals arranged in tubular, star-shaped, or bell-shaped forms and, when fruiting, are filled with tiny, crescent-shaped seeds.

Text from Wikipedia, “Dudleya”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family

Crassulaceae

Described by

(Nutt.) Moran

Native to

California, Mexico Northwest

Wild records

959 in range· 294 open

At a glance

Warmest month

28°C

Aug, mean day; nights 18 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

333mm/yr

5 wet months · peak Feb 74 mm (CHELSA)

Light

20–52DLI

mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)

In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Dudleya, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a winter growing season, December to March in the northern hemisphere (December to March at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 333 mm a year, wettest February at 74 mm, driest June at 2 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 20 to 52 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 4.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Cotyledon edulis (Nutt.) Brewer; Echeveria edulis (Nutt.) A.Berger; Echeveria edulis Pursh; Sedum edule Nutt.; Sedum edule Nutt. ex Torr. & A.Gray and 1 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Dudleya, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a winter growing season, December to March in the northern hemisphere (December to March at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the year's rain (242 mm of 333 mm) falls in December to March, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 12.7 °C against a yearly mean of 16.7 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: June to September.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 333 mm a year, wettest February at 74 mm, driest June at 2 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

333 mm a year at the habitat, 242 mm of it December to March. Wettest month February at 74 mm, driest June at 2 mm; 3 months under 5 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 273 mm to 477 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 20 to 52 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 20 to 52 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 19, the highest 90th-percentile month 53).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 4.4 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 4.4 °C, the absolute minimum -0.5 °C, 1 frost night in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 7.3 °C in January (across the envelope cells 4.7 °C to 10.2 °C), warmest day 28.0 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 4.4 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 54 to 61% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 195 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale

Figures by month

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	17 / 16–18	17 / 16–18	18 / 17–19	20 / 18–21	22 / 19–24	24 / 21–28	27 / 23–31	28 / 24–31	27 / 24–29	24 / 21–25	20 / 19–21	17 / 16–18
Night °C	7 / 5–10	8 / 5–11	9 / 6–11	10 / 8–12	13 / 11–14	15 / 13–15	18 / 17–18	18 / 18–19	18 / 16–18	14 / 12–16	10 / 8–13	7 / 5–11
Rain mm	60 / 48–85	74 / 59–101	59 / 47–83	24 / 20–39	5 / 4–9	2 / 1–3	2 / 1–6	3 / 1–10	6 / 5–8	18 / 14–23	31 / 27–46	49 / 41–75
DLI	22 / 21–23	27 / 26–28	35 / 35–37	43 / 43–45	49 / 48–50	52 / 51–53	50 / 49–51	46 / 46–47	40 / 39–41	31 / 30–33	24 / 23–25	20 / 19–21
RH %	55 / 52–59	57 / 54–61	60 / 56–62	59 / 55–62	61 / 55–65	60 / 51–66	58 / 50–67	58 / 50–66	57 / 50–65	56 / 52–63	54 / 50–60	54 / 51–58

Each figure is the median across the 195 grid cells holding the 842 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1146:1263 (32.675, -116.825). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -0.5 °C, 1st-percentile night 4.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.7 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 195 distinct grid cells holding the 842 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1146:1263 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 32.50_-116.875, lapse-corrected -88 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 306 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.

Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.

NativeCalifornia, Mexico Northwest

Kew's description“succulent subshrub” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker32.825, -117.065 · in the densest population, 956 records (100% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 959 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 294 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 19 km away. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 117 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.

The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 959 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Mike Butler, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Eric Alan Isaacson, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Adam J. Searcy, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Millie Basden, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0.

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Dudleya edulis, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

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