From Timberpress.com credit to Neal Maillet, Debra Lee Baldwin and Fred Dortort

In regard to Sedum burrito, it’s a complex issue, but here’s probably more than you need to know about it. The plant was described formally in 1977 as Sedum burrito, a distinct species, by Reid Moran who was a noted authority on New World Crassulaceae. However, the description was based on plants that had been bought several years earlier, one at a nursery in Guadalajara, another in a little town near the purported habitat, so it’s true that no wild collection data exists. It’s worth mentioning that Sedum morganianum the other ‘Donkey Tail’ sedum, was also described (in the 1930s) from cultivated material in the same town, wasn’t seen in the wild even anecdotally until the 1970s, and only found definitively in 2006 I believe. Lately some people have begun calling burrito a hybrid, but the big question is with what — one parent would have to be Sedum morganianum, but no satisfactory suggestions about the other parent as far as I know. I’ve vacillated between calling it a variety of morganianum and a form, but variety without habitat data isn’t any more valid than species lacking data. It could be called cv. ‘Burrito’ but cultivars are supposed to refer to material selected out in cultivation, which is not the case either. Burrito, however, isn’t a horticultural name, it was published validly as such, just a sort of quirky name. If I were writing about it (I mention it briefly in passing), I would say it’s a plant of currently imprecisely determined taxonomic status, and go on calling it either Sedum burrito or Sedum morganianum cv. ‘Burrito’ and leave it at that. It’s surprising how many species floating around have never had their localities discovered; some have been in cultivation for so long that the info is just lost, others were described say 150 years ago and have never been rediscovered. Keeps things interesting.

Reply to this comment

I cut the stem up to healthy tissue, put it in the soil, and it rooted in less than 2 weeks.

Reply to this comment

Research by Leo_Breman's photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/x...

Update Oct 2010: I have now realised I was wrong about a bunch of things.
-Sedum burrito was originally collected in Veracruz, Mexico, by Paul Clifford Hutchison (1924-?), with the collection number 1328A, probably first grown at the Berkeley Botanic Garden in California.
-Sedum burrito Moran is a validly published name. It was published by Reid Venable Moran (1916-Feb 2010) in 1977 in the Los Angeles Cactus and Succulent Journal.
-The ending '-o' in this Latin binomial is grammatically acceptable, although this combination is extremely rare in Sedum. The two words may end in this manner if both are nominative nouns which do not agree in gender, 'sedum' is neutral, whereas 'burrito', whatever the etymology, is male

Needless to say, we need not agree with these people. Generally, experts seem to have withheld their opinion, merely mentioning that they are probably the same. S. morganianum was itself also found in Veracruz in the 1930's, and it has never been found in the wild again. Reports of it occurring elsewhere are simply false. S. morganianum has 2n=70, S. burrito has been given 2n=69(???). This is of course very strange. 2n=69 is only possible in a hybrid or a mutant where incomplete crossing-over has occurred. 2n=69 almost has to be self-sterile.

Reply to this comment