Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Tapertip liveforever

Dudleya attenuata

Also called Orcutt's Dudleya

Tapertip liveforever
Photo: Kristen Francis, CC0

A rosette-forming succulent that spreads into clumps of narrow, pencil-shaped, waxy leaves, native to coastal bluffs of Baja California and a small area of San Diego County. It is a variable species that hybridizes readily, and it is grown for its drought tolerance and need for sharp drainage and sun.

Family
Crassulaceae (Stonecrop family)
Grows as
Succulent, Perennial
Light
Full sun
Water
Water deeply but infrequently, letting the soil dry out fully between waterings, and water less in winter.
Soil
Fast-draining gritty cactus or succulent mix.
Temperature
10–35 °C; protect below 0 °C
How easy
Easy
Native range
California (SW. San Diego Co.) to Mexico (N. Baja California)
Climate
desert or dry shrubland

About

Dudleya attenuata is a species of perennial succulent plant known by the common name taper-tip liveforever, native to Baja California and a small portion of California. It is a rosette-forming leaf succulent which has narrow pencil-shaped leaves that can often be found covered in a white epicuticular wax. The thin, sprawling stems branch to form the clusters of rosettes, with plants creating a "clump" up to 40 cm wide. The small flowers are white or yellow, with 5 spreading petals. It is a diverse, variable species that extends from the southernmost coast of San Diego County to an area slightly north of the Vizcaino Desert, hybridizing with many other species of Dudleya in its range. Some plants with white or pinkish flowers were referred to as Orcutt's liveforever, referring to a former subspecies split on the basis of the flower color.

Where it grows

D. attenuata is nearly endemic to Baja California with the exception of a population north of the border in San Diego County, California, at the Border Field State Park. It is also occurrent offshore on the Coronado Islands and the Isla Todos Santos. It can be found on coastal bluffs, typically below 165 ft.

Other Dudleya plants

Abrams' liveforever · San Bernardino Mountains liveforever · Limestone dudleya · Dudleya cymosa subsp. costatifolia · Abrams' liveforever · Vizcaino liveforever · White-flowered liveforever · Todos Santos liveforever · Anthony's Liveforever · Arizona Chalk Dudleya · Blochman's liveforever · Short Eaf Dudleya

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Dudleya attenuata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…