Endemic to southern Baja California Sur, the species is found in the Sierra de la Laguna and the surrounding lowlands, a small southern portion of the Sierra de la Giganta, and on Isla Espíritu Santo, with a subspecies endemic to Cerralvo Island.

[2] The peduncle is 10 to 30 cm tall to the cyme, 1.5 to 5mm thick, colored pink to red and often glaucous, with a variable shape depending on the subspecies.

The seeds are brown, narrowly ovoid, acute, longitudinally striated, and roughly 0.5 to 0.7 mm long.

[2][3] This species was described by Townshend Stith Brandegee, the first botanist to explore the mountains of the Sierra de la Laguna.

He found the plant flowering on the rocks at the summit of the mountains and named it a year later, in 1891, as Cotyledon nubigena.

The name nubigena implies cloudy summits, but despite this, Brandegee also recognized many plants at sea level near San Jose del Cabo.

The species xanti was named for L. J. Xantus de Vesey, a tidal observer at Cabo San Lucas for the U.S. Coast Guard Survey from 1859 to 1861.

cerralvensis, an endemic of Cerralvo Island, occurring only in a few canyons shielded from the hot climate.

It is also found in the far southern end of the Sierra de la Giganta, the Cerro Mechudo, and also on Isla Espíritu Santo.