ACCOUNT OF GENUS SEDUM AS FOUND IN CULTIVATION. 63 



separate nearly to the base, slender, narrow, tapering, very acute, spreading. 

 Petals white, erect, recurved above, oblong-lanceolate, acuminate, margins 

 eroded, more than twice the sepals. Stamens /shorter than the petals, filaments 

 white, anthers red-purple. Scales small, yellow, quadrate, slightly notched. 

 Carpels white, erect, about J as long as the stamens. 



Flowers June. Hardy. 



Habitat. — ^N. China. 



This species and S. Tatarinowii, neither previously in cultivation, 

 were sent to Kew in 1913 by Mr. F. N. Meyer of the American 

 Legation at Pekin, who collected them at 3,000 metres at Hsiao 

 Wutai Shan. 



A variable species, but especially characterized by its white bell- 

 shaped flowers with petals prolonged into a slender tail and margins 

 usually fringed. S. rariflorum of N. E. Brown, in cultivation at 

 Kew, is fairly typical dumulosum. S. Farreri W. W. Smith, raised 

 by the late Mr. Farrer from seed collected by him in Kansu, is a 

 robust form with long sepals and broad petals much eroded. 



17. Sedum trifidum Wallich (figs. 25, 26). 



S. trifidum, WalUch Catalogue, No. 7230, 1828. Hooker fil. and 

 Thomson in Journ. Linn. Soc, Boi., 2, 100. Clarke in Hooker, 

 " Flor. Brit. India." 2, 420. Masters in Gard. Chron., 1878, ii. 267. 

 Illustration. — Garden, 1885, 317. 



A pretty plant with the thickened rootstock of the Rhodiolas, 

 but distinct from other species of that section in its broad, deeply- 

 incised leaves grouped near the top of the stems, and its lax inflores- 

 cence of large red flowers ; and whereas most of the Rhodiola section 

 are early flowerers, S. trifidum does not bloom till September. 



Description. — A glabrous herbaceous perennial. Rootstock thick, branched, 

 sometimes elongate, but (in cultivation at least) not aerial. Stems several 

 together, erect, unbranched, 6-8 inches high, slender, smooth, round, red, bare 

 save near the top, or with a few small, entire, club-shaped leaves. Leaves 

 alternate, crowded on the terminal i to 2 inches of stem, smooth, green, sessile, 

 1^3 inches long, narrow and linear or tapered in the lower half, expanded 

 above into an obovate lamina deeply and irregularly cut and toothed. Inflores- 

 cence a very leafy, lax, flat cyme about 2 inches across, of several minutely 

 papillose forked branches, upper bracts linear, entire. Buds linear-lanceolate, 

 blunt. Flowers f inch across, mostly sessile, the lower shortly stalked. Sepals 

 green, very fleshy, blunt, variable in length, i to ^ the petals, linear or lanceolate 

 to short triangular (fig. 25, a, b). Petals purple-red, linear-lanceolate, apiculate, 

 •wide-spreading, ultimately reflexed. Stamens purple-red, spreading, slightly 

 shorter than the petals. Scales red, cuneate, deeply notched, broader than 

 long. Carpels white tinged red, nearly erect, equalling the stamens. 



Flowers August-September. Hardy. 



Habitat. — Himalayas, widely distributed, 6,000-12,000 feet, on 

 rocks and trees ; Yunnan. 



A distinct and pleasing plant, and one of the few Sedums that 

 offers some difficulty as regards its cultivation. The best plants 

 which I have seen were grown in deep, well-drained crevices not fully 

 exposed to the sun. In the Himalayas on mossy tree-trunks or 

 rocks it often grows a foot high, with large deeply pinnatifid leaves. 



