ACCOUNT OF GENUS SEDUM AS FOUND IN CULTIVATION. 3 



The cases in which the descriptions or figures are in whole or part 

 not drawn from living material may be summarized as foUows : 

 Fresh material not available — 



5. rubricaule, S. Hemsleanum, S. japonicum, S. Zentaro- 

 Tashiroi. 

 Plants which have not flowered with me, or which died before 

 flowering : 



S. chapalense, S. cyaneum, S. dendroideum, S. frutescens, S. 

 Hallii, S. lenophylloides. S. oaxacanum, S. polyrkizum, S. irul- 

 lipetalum. 

 Description helped out by dried material : 



S. Cockerellii, S. glahnim, S. purpureoviride, S. Stevenianum. 



With the design of helping those to whom the technical terms of 

 descriptive botany are unfamiliar. I have prefaced the description of 

 each species with a brief note of the characteristics by which it may 

 be distinguished from its nearest aUies. I would like to warn readers 

 that rehance on the figures alone may sometimes lead them astray 

 in a genus so large and complicated ; even if the full description of 

 the plant is not used, a careful study of the short note mentioned is 

 quite necessary if pitfalls are to be avoided. 



II. Historical. 



As might be expected in a genus of which a number of species, 

 of sufficiently noteworthy appearance, grow in regions associated 

 with early civiUzations, species of Sedum were known to the ancient 

 naturalists (e.g. S. Cepaea, 5. maximum, S. roseum), being referred to 

 by Greek and Latin writers ; these and others were likewise known 

 to the medieval herbaUsts. Coming to the dawn of modem botany, 

 we find 15 species enumerated in the first edition (1753) of 

 Linnaeus' "Species Plantarum," all of these being European except 

 S. Aizoon and S. hybridum (both Siberian) and S. verticillatum 

 (Japanese, &c.). In the 4th edition (1799) of the same work the 

 number has risen to 29. mainly by the addition of other European 

 species. In 1828 De Candolle (" Prodromus," 3, p. 401) enumer- 

 ates 88 species of Sedum, some of them tentatively as non salts 

 nota, but ahnost all now recognized as good species. De Candolle's 

 list includes a good many additions from the Caucasus, a few from 

 Siberia, the Himalayas, Japan, North Africa, the United States, 

 and Mexico, and one each from Madeira, Ecuador, and Venezuela. 

 In 1862 Bentham and Hooker (" Genera Plantarum," 1, p. 660) put 

 down the number of known species at 120. This total is increased to 

 130 in standard works published during the next ten or twenty years, 

 and this figure is raised only to 140 in such standard recent works 

 as ENGLERand Prantl, " Naturliche Pflanzenfamilien," iii. a (1891) 



