A relatively large member of the genus Dudleya, this species has long green succulent leaves, and in April to June is characterized by pale yellow to white pink-tinged flowers topping tall, reddish inflorescences.

It has a stem clothed densely with old, leathery leaves, and the inflorescence may be nodding, with the floral branches bearing the flowers tending to unfurl like the fronds of a fern.

[3] As a member of the subgenus Dudleya, this species has a basal rosette with evergreen leaves and a flower with tight petals that form a tube.

The cauline leaves are positioned mostly horizontal to ascending, shaped triangular, with an acute tip, the lowermost 1 to 4 cm (0.39 to 1.57 in) long and 7 to 20 mm (0.28 to 0.79 in) wide.

The terminal branches (cincinni) are circinate (unfurling like the frond of a fern), but in maturity tend to be in an ascending position, 4 to 15 cm (1.6 to 5.9 in) with 10–20 flowers (from 6 to up to 30 in extreme cases).

[2] The type specimen of this species was collected by Townshend Stith Brandegee, a noted botanical explorer of Baja California, in June of 1893, at San Telmo.

Joseph Nelson Rose, in his work on revising the North American Crassulaceae with Nathaniel Lord Britton, made the first description of this species in 1903 as part of their creation of the genus Dudleya.

Johansen notes the unusually vivid green color of the plants collected by Gates, thus giving the specific epithet viridicata.

[5] In his 1951 dissertation on the genus, botanist Reid Moran also found the plants in the locality to be diploid, as opposed to the tetraploid majority of D. ingens.

Moran does note, though, that the type specimen of D. viridicata appears most similar to another diploid, Dudleya brittonii, and that his placement of this taxa in D. ingens was not without some hesitancy.

[3] In 1935, Johansen published another species, Dudleya eximia, based on plants collected by Gates at a hill north of Mission San Vicente, about 5 miles from the coast.

Moran does also comment that at the type locality in late March of 1940, the young floral stems of these plants were only about two inches high, while elsewhere D. ingens was already in flower.