28 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



parts of the flower, the following descriptions must not be taken as 

 exhausting the range of variation which many of the plants possess. 



Series I. Rhodiolae s.s. 

 Group I. RosEAE. 

 I. Sedum roseum Scopoli (fig. 4). 

 S. roseum Scopoli, " Flor. Carniolica," ed. 2, 1, 326, 1772. 



Synonyms. — Rhodiola rosea Linn., " Species Plantanim," 1035. Sedum 

 Rhodiola De Candolle, " Prodromus," 3, 401 ; Maximowicz in Bulletin Acad. 

 Pitersbourg, 29, 128 ; Masters in Gard. Chron., 1878, ii. 267. 



Illustrations. — Sowerby, " English Bot.," ed. 3, pi. 525. De Candolle, 

 " Plantes Grasses," tab. 143. " Flora Danica," tab. 183. Cusin and Ansberque, 

 "Herb. Flor. Fran9aise, Crassul.," tab. 3. Trans. Russian Hort. Soc, 1863, 

 tab. 129. 



A very variable species, of which the common European (and 

 British) form is described below. 5. roseum includes plants which 

 vary from very glaucous to bright green, with leaves much toothed 

 01 entire^ and of a wide range of shape, and flowers green, yellow, 

 red, or purple. Nevertheless, it can generally be easUy separated 

 from its alUes : S. heterodontum, which may be only an extreme variety, 

 is distinguished at once by its short, very broad, much-toothed 

 leaves ; S. Stephani has 5-parted (not 4-parted) flowers, usually 

 hermaphrodite (instead of dioecious), or if dioecious the male ovaries 

 are comparatively large, and the plant is green ; 5. Kirilowii is also 

 green, with 5-parted dioecious flowers, the leaves are usually much 

 longer than in roseum, and broadest at the base instead of near the 

 apex, and the plant taller (a foot or more) ; but the last three are 

 variable, and caution is necessary. 



Description. — A glaucous, dicEcious, herbaceous perennial. Rootstock thick, 

 branched, eventually long, aerial, covered with grey rind marked with elliptic 

 scars of old stems ; old steins not persistent ; scales at the crown of the root- 

 stock (from the axils of which the stems arise) chaffy, not well developed. 

 Stems annual, several from the summit of each branch of the rootstock, erect, 

 unbranched, leafy, smooth, round, 6-12 inches high. Leaves scattered, imbri- 

 cate, sessile, strap-shaped to obovate, acute, rounded at base, about ij inch 

 long by J inch broad, flat, fleshy, glaucous, more or less toothed near the apex, 

 larger near summit of stem. Inflorescence terminal, compact, convex. Buds 

 subglobular. Flowers 4-parted, yellow or greenish yellow, shorter than the 

 pedicels. Male flower : — i inch across ; sepals narrow, tapering ; petals linear, 

 blunt, i^ times the sepals ; stamens slightly exceeding the petals, filaments 

 yellow, anthers purple ; scales conspicuous, orange, oblong, emarginate ; carpels 

 yellow, erect, shorter than the petals. Female flower : — sepals and petals 

 similar, linear, greenish, sometimes flushed red ; calyx-tube ^ as long as the 

 calyx segments ; stamens absent; scales as in the male; carpels ij the petals, 

 3 to 4 sixteenths of an inch long, greenish. 



Flowers May (in gardens) ; about July on the mountains. Hardy. 



Habitat. — Circumpolar, ranging in its various forms from Nova 

 Zembla and Greenland southward to the Pyrenees, Japan, and New 

 Mexico. One of the hardiest of Sedums, capable of enduring, according 

 to Kerner, for weeks a temperature of — 10° C. without injury. 



This is the well-known Roseroot, so called from the fragrant 

 odour of the fleshy rootstocks, which is strongest when these are 



