Dudleya lanceolata, Angeles MRCA Open Space, Los Angeles, California, United States

Dudleya lanceolata (Nutt.) Britton & Rose

lance-leaved dudleya, lanceleaf liveforever

Climate known 83 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 lanceolata is a succulent plant known by the common name lanceleaf liveforever or lance-leaved dudleya. It is an extremely variable and widely ranging species that occurs from Monterey County and Kern County in California south through Ensenada in Baja California. It is characterized by green to purple lanceolate leaves, red, orange, or less commonly yellow petals, and is typically tetraploid. Despite its diversity, it is quite stable as a species, but hybrids may be discovered with other species of Dudleya, which can make it difficult to discern in areas where numerous species converge.

Text from Wikipedia, “Dudleya lanceolata”, 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.) Britton & Rose

Native to

California, Mexico Northwest

Wild records

1544 in range· 365 open

At a glance

Warmest month

29°C

Aug, mean day; nights 18 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

415mm/yr

6 wet months · peak Feb 95 mm (CHELSA)

Light

19–52DLI

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 415 mm a year, wettest February at 95 mm, driest July at 1 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 19 to 52 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 3.2 °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 bernardina (Britton) Fedde; Cotyledon brauntonii (Rose) Fedde; Cotyledon brautonii (Rose) Fedde; Cotyledon congesta (Rose) Fedde; Cotyledon hallii (Rose) Fedde and 38 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 (308 mm of 415 mm) falls in December to March, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 11.8 °C against a yearly mean of 16.3 °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 415 mm a year, wettest February at 95 mm, driest July at 1 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

415 mm a year at the habitat, 308 mm of it December to March. Wettest month February at 95 mm, driest July at 1 mm; 3 months under 5 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 289 mm to 608 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: 19 to 52 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 19 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 17, the highest 90th-percentile month 54).

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 3.2 °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 3.2 °C, the absolute minimum -0.8 °C, 7 frost nights in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 40.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 6.1 °C in January (across the envelope cells 3.0 °C to 9.7 °C), warmest day 28.9 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 3.2 °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: 52 to 58% 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 441 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 / 13–18	17 / 14–18	18 / 16–20	20 / 17–23	23 / 18–26	26 / 20–29	28 / 22–32	29 / 23–33	27 / 23–31	24 / 21–26	20 / 17–21	17 / 13–18
Night °C	6 / 3–10	7 / 4–10	8 / 5–11	10 / 6–12	12 / 10–14	15 / 13–15	17 / 15–18	18 / 15–19	17 / 14–18	13 / 10–16	9 / 6–13	6 / 3–10
Rain mm	87 / 53–127	95 / 63–133	64 / 47–94	29 / 20–46	8 / 4–13	2 / 2–4	1 / 1–4	2 / 1–5	6 / 4–10	19 / 14–29	40 / 28–60	62 / 43–98
DLI	21 / 19–23	26 / 24–28	35 / 33–37	44 / 42–45	49 / 48–51	52 / 51–54	51 / 50–52	47 / 46–48	40 / 39–41	31 / 29–33	23 / 21–25	19 / 17–21
RH %	54 / 51–59	56 / 53–61	57 / 54–62	56 / 51–62	58 / 50–64	57 / 47–65	55 / 46–65	54 / 46–65	54 / 47–64	54 / 48–62	52 / 48–59	53 / 49–59

Each figure is the median across the 441 grid cells holding the 1304 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 1139:1259 (33.025, -117.025). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -0.8 °C, 1st-percentile night 3.2 °C, 99th-percentile day 40.7 °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 441 distinct grid cells holding the 1304 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1139:1259 (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 33.00_-116.875, lapse-corrected -342 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 242 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” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker33.865, -117.652 · in the densest population, 1248 records (81% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1544 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 365 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 76 km away. 5 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 240 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 1544 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Mike Butler, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); no rights reserved · CC0; (c) klicklo, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4).

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 lanceolata, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

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