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.

The genus evolved as neoendemics, from ancestors in the stonecrop genus, Sedum. The ancestors probably radiated southward from Sedum during the creation of the dry summer climate, in the California region, five million years ago. Early botanists classified the larger species as Echeveria and Cotyledon, while the geophytic species were placed under Sedum. Taxonomic efforts, started by Joseph Nelson Rose and Nathaniel Lord Britton, created three genera, including Dudleya. These genera were all eventually subsumed into Dudleya proper with the work of Reid Moran. Phylogenetic research is still at an early stage in the genus, and is complicated by the fact that many species are becoming endangered and over-harvested (poached).