COTYLEDON NEVADENSIS. 

 NEVADA COTYLEDON. 



NATURAL ORDER, CRASSULACE.E. 



Cotyledon Nevadensis, Watson. — Acaulescent, glaucous : rosulate leaves obovate to oblan- 

 ceolate, somewhat rhomboidal, acute or acuminate, the larger two to four inches long: 

 Flowering branches six to ten inches high, with scattered lanceolate or broadly triangular 

 acute leaves : inflorescence a rather close-spreading compound cyme : bracts small : ped- 

 icels three to nine lines long : sepals ovate, acute, two lines long or less : petals lanceo- 

 late, acute, five lines long, yellow tinged with red : carpels very short, ovate-oblong, three 

 lines long in fruit. (Brewer & Watson's Flora of the California Geological Survey.^ 



jNE of our most popular poets, T. Buchanan Read, in a 

 little poem called a " Plea for the Homeless," has a 

 passage which we may well apply to the plant we are about 

 to describe : 



" Sweet plants there are which bloom in sultry places, 



By rude feet trampled in their early hour, 

 Which, when transplanted, are so full of graces 



They lend a charm to Flora's fairest bower. 

 Oh ! ye who pass look down into their faces. 



Displace the dust and recognize the flower." 



Not only this species, but many of its associates, have much in 

 their histories which may be suggested by these lines. They 

 grow naturally in hot sultry places, and if they are not all covered 

 with the actual dust, many of them are clothed with a powdery 

 material which gives them precisely the look of dust-covered 

 plants. But the neglect which the poet typifies has been par- 

 ticularly their fate, until, still pursuing the poet's metaphor, the 

 dust has been removed, and now they are among the most highly 

 prized of all plants used in modern decorative gardening. They 



are known to florists as Echeveria, and some species are planted 



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