48 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



Herbs, or more rarely undershruhs, usually brancliini^ from the 

 base, ^vith alternate more rarely opposite or verticillate fleshy 

 leaves which arc generally crowded on the barren slioots. Plowers 

 in terminal corymbose cymes, with unilaterally- racemose often 

 scorpioid branches, rarely in terminal and lateral glomerules, 

 yellow, rose-colour, purple or white. Thougli 5 is the normal 

 number of petals in most of the species, yet there are very often 

 one or more flowers in each cyme with 6 parts. 



The name of this genus of plants comes from sedeo, I sit, referring to its manner 

 of growth upon stones, rocks, walls, and roofs of houses. 



Section I.— TELEPHIUM. Koch. 



Perennial. Ptootstock thickened, branched, many-headed, pro- 

 ducing numerous flowering-stems simple below, with no creeping 

 or procumbent barren shoots. Leaves flat or slightly concave. Stems 

 annual, appearing in spring and perishing in autumn. 



SPECIES I— SEDUM RHODIOLA. D.C. 

 Plate DXXV. 

 Rhodiola rosea, Linn. Sm. Eng. Bot. No. 508. 



Leaves sessile, alternate, crowded, flat, oblanceolate or obovate- 

 oblong, acute or acuminate, dentate towards the apex. Elowers 

 dioecious, in very compact terminal corymbose cymes. Calyx 

 4-partite. Petals 4. Stamens 8. Eollicles 4. 



On rocks and in stony places, principally in sub-alpine situa- 

 tions. On mountains in Wales, in Yorkshire, the Lake district, 

 the Cheviots, and plentiful in the Scottish Ilighlands, descending 

 to the sea-shore near Past Castle, Berwick, and in the North of 

 Scotland ; on Bcnbulben, the Donegal mountains, and other places 

 in the Korth of Ireland. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Late Summer 

 and Autumn. 



Eootstock much thickened, fleshy, branched, covered with grey 

 rind, and with brownish scales round the base of the stem and buds. 

 Stems numerous, erect, 3 to 18 inches high, fleshy, thickly clothed 

 with ascending glaucous leaves, which increase in size aud*^are more 

 thickly placed towards the upper part of the stem, where they are 

 from 1 to 1| inch long: Plowers yellow, sometimes tinged with 

 purplish-red, I inch across. Calyx-segments strapshaped-lanceolate, 

 often purplish. Petals strapshaped-clliptical, much longer in the 



