This weeks plant is common in the canyon, growing wild on the rocks along the boulevard and in the heavy rock outcroppings. This years rain has them looking beautiful and we can’t wait to see them come into flower.
Dudleya cymosa is a succulent plant known by the common name canyon live-forever. It is a distinctive plant sending up erect red-orange stems from a gray-green basal rosette. The small yellowish-red thimble-shaped flowers top the stems in large flower cluster. The plant is found in rocky areas in the low elevation mountains of California and southern Oregon from 500 to 8000 feet in elevation. Some subspecies are considered threatened locally. Hummingbirds love this plant. This genus is named for the first head of the botany department at Stanford University, Professor William Russell Dudley.
