Echeveria elegans

Echeveria elegans, the Mexican snow ball, God's Throne, Mexican gem or white Mexican rose is a species of flowering plant in the family Crassulaceae, native to semi-desert habitats in Mexico.

Description
Echeveria elegans is a succulent evergreen perennial growing to 5 - 10 cm tall by 50 cm wide, with tight rosettes of pale green-blue fleshy leaves, bearing 25 cm long slender pink stalks of pink flowers with yellow tips in winter and spring.

Cultivation
Echeveria elegans is cultivated as an ornamental plant for rock gardens planting, or as a potted plant. It thrives in subtropical climates, such as Southern California.

It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

Like others of its kind, it produces multiple offsets which can be separated from the parents in spring, and grown separately - hence the common name "hen and chicks", applied to several species within the genus Echeveria.



Etymology
Echeveria is named for Atanasio Echeverría y Godoy, a botanical illustrator who contributed to Flora Mexicana.

Elegans means 'elegant' or 'graceful'.