Succulent endemic Crassulaceae from Argentina, including three new taxa.

PINO INFANTE, G. ; KIESLING, R.

Cactus Succ. Journ. (USA)

Cactus and Succulent Society of America

Lugar: Los Angeles; Año: 2019 vol. 91 p. 1 - 4

0007-9367

Introduction: This plant was discovered by British plant hunter Edward Kent Balls, (1892 - 1984) a horticulturalist who collected ornamental plants for private subscribers, specimens for museum herbaria and wild potatoes for agricultural research. In 1939 he started an expedition from Lima and Arequipa, Perú, via La Paz, Bolivia, reaching Jujuy, Argentina and there he collected this plant at Tilcara, a place where it is abundant. (Fig. 1a) He then returned to Bolivia, crossed again Peru to explore Cusco and other provinces, then Ecuador and finally Colombia, where he located Echeveria ballsii (Walther, 1958). His Argentinian plant was primarily determined at Kew as E. peruviana Meyen. Paul Hutchison, who had already found the true E. peruviana near its type locality in 1964, examined herbarium specimens of this taxon and its closely related variety from Salta (see below), and coined the epithet ?E. argentinensis? (nomen herbariorum), being totally sure it was a new, undescribed species. He never described it, though, and until now it has been identified as E. peruviana. The recent publication of an update of this last species (Pino, 2019) enables us to compare both taxa and support the description of a new taxon.