A coastal plant of northern California and southern Oregon, it is typically found on ocean bluffs just directly above the reach of the waves, and sometimes inland.

Its appearance is characterized by lotus-like rosettes of beveled leaves, and in summer the plant erects a tall pink to red peduncle densely covered in bracts, topped with branches of pale yellow flowers.

[3] Although Dudleya farinosa is common throughout its range, it is often targeted by plant poachers, and high-profile incidents of poaching in the 2010s have alarmed conservationists.

As the plants are generally rooted in vertical bluffs and cliffs, the caudices in age become decumbent or pendent, hanging downwards from their point of origin.

[5] A leaf-succulent, the rosettes consist of short, thick, and pointed leaves, sometimes covered heavily in a farina, or epicuticular wax, used to shield the plant from the sun and water.

(In another species in the genus, Dudleya brittonii, the thick white wax represents a material with the highest measured ultraviolet reflectivity recorded in any plant.

Stress, cool wind, sunshine, and exposure can cause the edges or tips of the leaves to turn red, maroon or violet.

[10][11] To sexually reproduce, before the summer the plant begins to erect a tall stalk (called a peduncle) that will bear the inflorescence.

The pale-yellow flowers, attached to tiny and erect stalks on the branches known as pedicels, face topside and have a somewhat tubular shape to them.

In the northern part of its range, D. farinosa has corollas that are often completely non-convolute,[13] a trait shared only by one other species, the morphologically dissimilar Dudleya variegata,[14] which has plesiomorphic Sedum-like flowers and a corm-like stem.

[18] This came after the previous edition of L'Illustration horticole erroneously contained the name Echeveria farinosa twice, once for Lindley's species,[19] and the second for a plant from Joseph zu Salm-Reifferscheidt-Dyck.

[21] In 1869, John Gilbert Baker published a new combination for the species, Cotyledon farinosa, in William Wilson Saunders's Refugium Botanicum, with an accompanying description and illustration.

Rose also authored three new species that are currently recognized as heterotypic synonyms of D. farinosa, all based on specimens collected by Alice Eastwood from 1900–1903.

[29] In 1953, cytologist Charles H. Uhl and botanist Reid Moran published the Cytotaxonomy of Dudleya and Hasseanthus in the American Journal of Botany.

[7] Dudleya farinosa is native to the coast of northern and central California and southern Oregon in the United States.

Gaps in the distribution include Santa Cruz County, where reports of D. farinosa are misidentifications of its similar relative Dudleya caespitosa.

californica, Erigeron glaucus, Angelica hendersonii, and Polypodium scouleri and semi-woody subshrubs such as Eriogonum latifolium, Eriophyllum staechadifolium, Grindelia stricta ssp.

[36][37] Examples of this community include Castle Rock, an island on the outer coast of Del Norte County, which has Dudleya farinosa growing in rocky areas with Erigeron glaucus and Polypodium scouleri.

[38] Another example is Point Arena in Mendocino County, which has typical coastal bluff scrub including D. farinosa, Erigeron glaucus and Eriophyllum staechadifolium.

[39] At Point Reyes National Seashore, Dudleya farinosa characterizes a unique plant community dominated by the prostrate form of Baccharis pilularis.

This association is only known from Point Reyes and is found on bluffs and sand dunes immediately adjacent to the ocean on southeast- to southwest-facing slopes.

On the Monterey Peninsula and Point Lobos, the coastal bluff scrub plant community is again present, and D. farinosa can be found growing with Hesperocyparis macrocarpa and Pinus radiata.

[43] Habitats where D. farinosa have been recorded include the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge in Bandon, where it is found growing on the east sides of several islands in association with Poa unilateralis, Armeria maritima, Sedum spathulifolium, Spergularia rubra, Fragaria chiloensis and Erigeron glaucus.

[44] At Cape Blanco, where extreme winds shape the coastal vegetation, patches of D. farinosa and Sedum spathulifolium are found at the harsh end of the promontory on isolated rocky crags in locations too steep, hard, and exposed for regular plants.