Echeveria elegans, the Mexican snow ball, God's Throne, Mexican gem or white Mexican rose is a species of flowering plant in the family Crassulaceae, native to semi-desert habitats in Mexico.
Echeveria elegans is a succulent evergreen perennial growing to 5- tall by 50cm (20inches) wide, with tight rosettes of pale green-blue fleshy leaves, bearing 25cm (10inches) long slender pink stalks of pink flowers with yellow tips in winter and spring.[1]
Echeveria elegans is cultivated as an ornamental plant for rock gardens planting, or as a potted plant. It thrives in subtropical climates, such as Southern California.
It has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.[2]
Like others of its kind, it produces multiple offsets which can be separated from the parents in spring, and grown separately - hence the common name "hen and chicks", applied to several species within the genus Echeveria.
Echeveria is named for Atanasio Echeverría y Godoy, a botanical illustrator who contributed to Flora Mexicana.[3]
Elegans means 'elegant' or 'graceful'.