Common Name: STONECROP FAMILY
Habit: Annual to shrub [+- tree-like or climbing], fleshy. Leaf: generally simple, alternate or opposite (whorled), in dense to open, basal (or terminal) rosettes, or basal and cauline (not in rosettes), reduced on distal stem or not, often +- red. Inflorescence: generally a cyme, panicle-like, generally bracted. Flower: generally bisexual; sepals generally 3--5, generally +- free; petals generally 3--5, +- free or fused; stamens >> to = sepals, epipetalous or not; pistils generally 3--5(8), simple, fused at base or not, ovary 1-chambered, placenta 1, parietal, ovules 1--many, style 1 per pistil. Fruit: follicles, generally 3--5. Seed: 1--many, small.
Genera In Family: +- 33 genera, +- 1400 species: +- worldwide, especially dry temperate; many cultivated for ornament. Note: Water-stressed plants often +- red. Consistent terminology regarding leaves, bracts difficult; in Aeonium and Dudleya, structures in rosettes are leaves, those on peduncles are bracts, and those subtending flowers are flower bracts; thus in taxa where the inflorescence is terminal, rosette leaves may "become" bracts as stem rapidly elongates to form an inflorescence. In Sedum structures below the inflorescence are interpreted as stems and leaves, not peduncles and bracts. Seed numbers given per follicle. SCIED: Scientific Editor: Bruce G. Baldwin, Thomas J. Rosatti.
eFlora Treatment Author: Steve Boyd, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Bruce G. Baldwin, Thomas J. Rosatti.

Common Name: DUDLEYA, LIVEFOREVER
Habit: Perennial herb, fleshy, glabrous, bisexual. Stem: generally caudex- or corm-like, branched or not, +- covered with dried leaves. Leaf: in rosettes, evergreen or +- deciduous in summer (withering, falling or not), waxy or not, base wounding purple-red (yellow) or generally not. Inflorescence: cyme; flower bracts +- subtending pedicels, < bracts; bracts alternate. Flower: sepals 5, fused below; petals 5, fused at base, erect to spreading above; stamens 10, epipetalous; carpels 5, +- fused below. Fruit: follicles 5, erect to spreading, many-seeded. Seed: < 1 mm, narrowly ovoid, brown, striate.
Etymology: (W.R. Dudley, 1st head of Botany Department, Stanford University, 1849--1911) Note: Fruit just before opening generally most reliable for orientation; insect damage may cause branching in taxa characterized as non-branching.
Unabridged Note: Whether or not leaves of Dudleya cymosa subsp. costifolia, Dudleya saxosa subsp. saxosa, Dudleya variegata wound purple-red, red, yellow, or some other color at base when removed is evidently unknown.
eFlora Treatment Author: Stephen Ward McCabe
Reference: Thiede 2003 in Eggli (ed.) Illus Handbook Succulent Pls 6 (Crassulaceae):85--103. Springer

Habit: Rosettes many, 4--25 cm wide. Stem: 1--8 cm wide. Leaf: evergreen, 3--25 cm, 15--30 mm wide, oblong, 4--6 mm thick, in ×-section +- elliptic or in upper 1/2 round, glaucous or not, +- fragrant or not. Inflorescence: peduncle 6--70 cm, 1.5--15 mm wide; 1° branches 2--many, branched 0--3 ×; terminal branches 1--10 cm, 3--20-flowered; pedicels 1--5 mm. Flower: sepals 2--4 mm, acute; petals 7--10 mm, 2--3 mm wide, fused 1--2 mm, elliptic, acute, white to pale yellow, some with red, keels rose or orange-brown.
Note: 1 other subsp., Guadalupe Island, Mexico.
Unabridged Note: 1 other subsp., Dudleya virens subsp. extima Moran, Guadalupe Island, Mexico.