After a recent silent auction of succulent plants, I brought home a fine specimen of Echeveria agavoides, which is one of the most popular species of the genus Echeveria, which includes 130 species. Plant hunters are finding and identifying additional species in Mexico’s mountainous terrain, where the plants are difficult to access and study.

The generic name honors Mexican botanical artist Atanasio Echeverria, who made some of the first drawings of the plant around 1787. My plant’s specific name, agavoides, means “looking like an agave.” The common name for this plant is Molded Wax Agave. Note that agaves are members of an entirely different botanical family.

Echeveria agavoides

The fleshy, succulent leaves of all Echeverias form rosettes, but the genus includes plants of many different sizes, leaf and blossom colors and special characteristics, e.g., frilly or bumpy leaves. The plants grow during the summer months, and are dormant from November through February. Plants may be evergreen or deciduous, and all are polycarpic, meaning they may flower and set seed many times during their lifetimes. (Monocarpic plants die after flowering.)

Many gardeners’ first contact with this genus is with “hens and chicks,” which is a common name for E. elegans, E. secunda and other plants.

Echeveria species are generally easy to propagate by separating offsets, rooting leaves, or planting seeds. The species also can be crossed easily with each other and even with species from some other genera, e.g., Graptopetalum, Pachyphytum and Sedum.

Growers have created many hundreds of generic and intergeneric hybrids. Hybridizers have named and formally introduced the more attractive cultivars, but have also released many of the less successful cultivars into the market. Hybrid plants are not propagated from seeds, but only by asexual methods, i.e., rooting offsets and detached leaves.

Selected variants within a species also can be cultivars. E. agavoides, for example, includes two popular cultivars: ‘Lipstick’, which has a rosettes in clumps that are 6 inches tall by 8 to 12 inches wide with apple-green leaves with vivid red-pink edges, and ‘Ebony’, which is similar in size, with gray-green leaves that have vivid red edges that, when grown in bright sun, blend in a dark red terminal spine.

‘Ebony’ is a natural hybrid that can be difficult to grow and propagate. In the silent auction ‘Ebony’ attracted more and higher bids than my choice, which looks to me to be ‘Lipstick’.

Excellent books about Echeverias include “The Genus Echeveria” (2008) by John Pilbeam and “Echeveria Cultivars” (2005) by Lorraine Schulz and Attila Kapitany. Another good source of information is the website of the Monterey Bay Area Cactus and Succulent Society. The Society is the local affiliate of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America.

Echeverias are available in a variety of forms, and all are easy to maintain and propagate, drought-tolerant, and interesting in color and form. They can be a fine addition to the garden, where they will develop the best colors, or an indoor container. Look for them in your local garden center or online.