Dudleya, commonly known as liveforevers, is a genus of rosette-forming succulent plants in the stonecrop family, Crassulaceae, consisting of about 68 taxa in southwestern North America and Guadalupe Island.

The flowers of Dudleya have parts numbered in fives, with the petals arranged in tubular, star-shaped, and bell-shaped forms and, when fruiting, are filled with tiny, ovoid-crescent-shaped seeds.

The ancestors radiated southward from Sedum during the creation of the dry summer climate, in the California region, five million years ago.

In the wild, many species of Dudleya are vulnerable, as land development and poachers often threaten particularly niche populations of plants.

[4] In the 1930s, Alwin Berger revised the status of Dudleya and Stylophyllum into a sectional ranking within Echeveria, while merging the Hasseanthus genera into Sedum.

These conclusions were widely accepted by botanists for the first half of the 20th century, until proper molecular and phylogenetic analyses began to appear.

With assistance from cytologist Charles H. Uhl, Moran came to the conclusion that Dudleya and Hasseanthus were related closer to each other than they were to Echeveria or Sedum.

[4] As Moran and Uhl conducted more cytological and taxonomic research on the genus, it became clear that Hasseanthus was also a subgenera of Dudleya, citing the karyological uniformity and the formation of hybrids between the genera.

The book included a large number of photographs, extensive descriptions, and horticultural practices for the care of Dudleya, derived from a long interest growing, visiting and collecting the plants.

However, he failed to follow the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature guidelines for describing new taxa, forgoing designated type specimens, which invalidated his treatment.

[15] His treatment also contains extensive pseudoscientific material, including references to the lost continents of Atlantis, Lemuria and Mu, a belief that cosmic rays and divine intervention directly induced the chromosome counts and evolution of Hasseanthus and Dudleya, and criticism of paleontologists and the scientifically accepted age of the Earth.

Phylogenetic analysis has given weight to this hypothesis, concluding that Dudleya is much closer to North American members of Sedoideae than to Echeverioideae.

Berger's hypothesis of a relationship between Hasseanthus and Sedum may still prove true, as in addition to morphological similarities, the Hasseanthus-type taxa could be basal to the genus.

While the long flowers may provide an evolutionary advantage for more effective pollination, more energy is required to produce the larger amounts of floral tissue.

As these species grade towards the subgenus Dudleya, the petals begin to fuse at the base, with the flowers becoming tubular and red, due to an association with hummingbird pollinators.

The investment in growing large allows plants to retain moisture in periods of drought, at the cost of energy placed into reproduction.

[7]Dudleya species are widespread and diverse in their range, but are typically found in rock outcroppings, cliff faces, or road cuts, where their leaves help them store water in a setting too dry for most types of plants.

Dudleya favor moderate temperatures, summer dormancy, winter precipitation, and rocky habitats, which means they may be found in diverse, disjunct locales from oceanic bluffs on the California coast to sky islands in Arizona.

[3] Regions where Dudleya can be found include The Californias, Arizona, coastal Sonora and Oregon, and southern Utah and Nevada.

[6][25] During the late fall to early spring period of growing, watering should be done frequently in order to promote good growth and flower development.

[31] Vegetative reproduction may occur in multiple ways:[6] The indigenous peoples of the Kumeyaay and Paipai region utilized the genus for both medicinal and agricultural purposes.

In 2016, Korean nationals began moving to Bahia Tortugas, a locality in Baja California Sur, to facilitate the poaching and shipping of the plants.

[40] In 2019, the deaths and injuries of several fishermen from Bahía Tortugas who were on Cedros Island was allegedly the result of Dudleya trafficking, a conflict with the Sinaloa Cartel, or both.

[41] In 2020, the Mexican Navy in the Second Naval Region revealed that two fishermen were killed after a dispute emerged over the trafficking of the rare plant.

Starting in 2017, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, along with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, discovered large amounts of D. farinosa being shipped out of the country.

According to nursery owners responsible for legally exporting Dudleya, buyers in Asia desired plants directly from the wild, owing to the aesthetic quality of their long caudices and weathered leaves.

[48] The California Native Plant Society and conservationists have also initiated propagation programs to oversaturate the market as a means to deter poachers.