CSSA VOL.77, January-February 2005 No.1 Research and Conservation Report Donna Woodward Rudolph Ulrich's Arizona Gardens Julie Cain Under Discussion: Avonia and other succulent Portulacaceae Fred Dortort Hybridizing Turbinicarpus and Gymnocactus Malcolm Burleigh Three short book reviews D Russell Wagner Three varieties of Echeveria cuspidata Myron Kimnach Euphorbias of Southern Morocco Susan Carter Pachypodium rosulatum ssp bemarahense a new subspecies from Madagascar Jonas Lüthy & John Lavranos Cacti of eastern Brazil Book Review Roy Mottram Echinocactus polycephalus ssp xeranthemoides in Marble Canyon Root Gorelick Superb Succulents Duke Benadom Succulents on Stamps Aloe, Part 1 Peg Spaete

On the cover. The cover photo depicts Echeveria rosea, a species that can be found throughout the entire eastern Mexican Sierra Madre Oriental. Julia Etter and Martin Kristen took this picture in the state of Guanajuato, in the Sierra Gorda above La Florida, on a high mountain ridge where the accompanying succulent flora included Agave mitis, A.lophantha, Sedum jurgensenii, Mammillaria hahniana ssp woodsii, Disocactus flagelliformis, and terrestrial orchids. This species usually occurs in humid, foggy and rainy mountains, quite often growing, as shown here, epiphytically on oak trees.

In this issue, Myron Kimnach describes two new varieties of Echeveria cuspidata, a plant which occurs only in northern Mexico. In contrast with the wet-growing epiphyte on the cover, E.cuspidata is confined to and places where the plants seek a little shade under small shrubs and between rocks, facts which might inform how we grow each of these species in our collections.