132 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 
CHAPTER VII 
ME Dad Creasures 
Ler others specialise on Sedum and Sempervivum. I 
frankly confess that I approach these two great races 
with hesitation. I have never been able to take more 
than a mild fancy for even the prettiest of Sedums. 
Justice must be done, though, even if deliberately, and I 
will place it solemnly on my record that the average 
Stonecrops are useful, easy-going inhabitants of the 
rockery, if kept in due bounds. Having said so much I 
will add my own personal sentiment, which is the same 
for Sedum as for Draba—a mere recognition of merit, 
uncoupled with any warmer feeling. The Stonecrops 
nearly all thrive anywhere, and are typical rock-plants, 
with the one exception of our own dear little marsh 
plant, the most charming species of the family—Sedum 
villosum, found in small colonies here and there in wet 
places on the high moors round the base of Ingleborough. 
Sedum album has white flowerheads, and is a rare native of 
attractive appearance. It turns out an appalling weed, 
which one throws away in cartloads without ever suc- 
ceeding in eradicating (my whole stock sprang from 
two crushed sprigs sent me in a letter: two years later I 
was weeding up barrow-loads of it without effect). Sedum 
anglicum is another rare little native, much neater and 
smaller, white-flowered and of modest habit and glaucous- 
blue leaves—perhaps the prettiest of all Sedums for 
