Dudleya candelabrum

The type specimen was collected by Professor E. L. Greene on Santa Cruz Island, in July and August of 1886. The species was described in 1903 with Nathaniel Lord Britton and Joseph Nelson Rose's taxonomic revision of North American Crassulaceae, as part of the creation of the genus Dudleya.[4] Later, German botanists such as Fedde in 1904 and Berger in 1930 would classify it as Cotyledon candelabrum and Echeveria candelabrum respectively, but these redefinitions were outdated after Reid Moran's revision of the genus, along with later phylogenetic work that showed Dudleya as being more closely related to Sedum than to Echeveria.[5]

Reid Moran noted the resemblance of the plant to the green form of Dudleya brittonii.[2] Phylogenetic analysis has show that it is instead related to Dudleya acuminata, a geographically distant plant that shares the trait of shiny green leaves.[5]

Despite the characteristic green leaves, however, some individuals may instead have white, glaucous leaves, which makes them difficult to distinguish from the polymorphic Dudleya greenei. The two may be keyed by the fact that D. candelabrum is found in steep, inland to coastal canyons, on often north-facing or shaded cliffs, or on deeper soils than D. greenei, and the fact that D. candelabrum has long, reflexed bracts.[6]