234 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



late, spreading, acute. Stamens orange, nearly equalling the petals. Scales 

 minute, roundish, greenish. Carpels orange, nearly erect, shorter than the 

 stamens. 



Flowers February-April (gentle heat) ; May-June (cold frame and 

 open ground). Hardy at Dublin and at Warley, Essex. 



Habitat. — Nuevo Leon and Coahuila, Mexico. 



Much rarer in cultivation than its merits deserve. I have received 

 it from Washington (via Wisley) , New York, and the Missouri Botanic 

 Garden, also from Dresden and the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle at 

 Paris. It is in a few English gardens, and Perry of Enfield, Haage 

 «& Schmidt of Erfurt, and Correvon of Geneva have it for sale. 



The name commemorates Dr. E. Palmer, one of the foremost of 

 Mexican botanical explorers. 



109. Sedum compressum Rose (fig. 135). 



S. compressum Rose in "Contrib. U.S. Nat. Herb.," 12, 440, 1909. 



Illustration. — Loc. cit., pi. 80 (photo). 



Closely alHed to the better known 5. Palmeri, and very like it 

 in habit and flower, but recognizable by its acute or apiculate leaves. 

 The sepals also are acute (not blunt as in Palmeri) , the flowers larger 

 and the mature and fading leaves are often flushed with red, which 

 never happens in the more glaucous 5. Palmeri. The' flowers are of 

 the same brilliant orange colour. 



Description. — Evergreen perennial, smooth and glaucous. Stems sprawling, 

 ascending or erect, about 6 inches high, bare save near the top, often rooting 

 when prostrate, round, smooth, marked with leaf-scars. Leaves oblanceolate- 

 trapezoidal, about i by | inch, broadest f way up, sessile, acute or apiculate, 

 fleshy, flat on face, convex on back, glaucous, edges often beaded, forming a 

 loose rosette, older ones often flushed red. Flower-stem slender, apparently 

 terminal, afterwards lateral, i to 2 inches long, with smaller leaves. Inflorescence 

 a 2- to 3-branched cyme, branches secund, at first drooping, afterwards erect. Buds 

 narrow, with adpressed sepals. Flowers showy, orange, f inch across, the lower 

 stalked, the upper sessile. Sepals unequal, ultimately deflexed, linear-lanceolate 

 to ovate, yellowish green, flat on face, convex on back, separate almost to the 

 base. Petals patent, later deflexed, ovate- lanceolate, acute, equalling or ex- 

 ceeding the longest sepal. Stamens spreading, orange, nearly equalling the 

 petals. Scales very small, squarish, yellow. Carpels orange, slender, at first 

 erect, later slightly spreadhig, equalling the stamens, styles long, very slender. 



Flowers January-March (gentle heat) ; April-May (cold frame). 

 One of the hardiest of Mexican Sedums ; at Dubhn survived in the 

 open the very severe winter of 1916-7. 



Habitat. — Tamaulipas, Mexico. 



Received from Washington, and also (unnamed, mixed with 

 S. Palmeri) from New York. 



no. Sedum variicolor Praeger (figs. 136, 137). 



5". variicolor Praeger in Journ. of Bot., 57, 54, 1919. 



A rather handsome, smallish Chinese perennial, unUke any other 

 species in cultivation. To be recognized by the perennial growth of 

 its stout, short, erect or widely divergent stems, its fiat, entire, oblong- 



