Echeveria elegans

Echeveria elegans is a small rosette succulent from the semi-desert mountains of Hidalgo in central Mexico, where it grows in fast-draining soil on dry slopes around Pachuca. Each rosette stays under 10 cm tall and is packed with plump, spoon-shaped leaves dusted in farina — a powdery wax that gives them their pale silver-blue colour and rubs off permanently when handled. It offsets freely, so a single rosette gradually builds into a tight clump of 'chicks' up to 50 cm across. In late winter and spring it sends up arching pink stalks hung with small, lantern-shaped pink flowers tipped in yellow. It does best in an open terrarium in full sun with soil that dries out completely between waterings; the still, humid air of a closed vessel quickly rots the centre of the rosette.