ACCOUNT OF GENUS SEDUM AS FOUND IN CULTIVATION. 



237 



spathulate leaves which fall in autumn, its large, lax, cymes of showy 

 yellow flowers, and its peculiar carpels at first concave on the inner 

 edge. 



Description. — A smallish, glabrous, deciduous, perennial. Rootstock very 

 short, thick, emitting strong fibrous roots below and many stems above. Stems 

 perennial, half a foot long, erect, spreading, or procumbent, with short, wide- 

 spreading, leafy, barren and flowering branches, about ^^ inch thick, minutely 

 roughened, dark brownish and bare in lower part, green or reddish above. Leaves 

 alternate, occasionally subtemate, rather crowded, sessile, entire, flat, glabrous, 

 oblong-spathulate or broadly oblanceolate, tapered below, shortly spurred,' 

 bluntly pointed and often slightly apiculate at apex, fleshy, bright green, f inch 

 long, j inch broad, spur truncate. Inflorescence flat, 2 to 3 inches across, of three 

 usually dichotomous, wide-spreading, finely mammillate, leafy branches with 

 flowers in the forks, lowest flower as long as its pedicel, the rest subsessile or 

 sessile ; lower bracts resembling the leaves, upper bracts linear. Buds ovate, with 

 a campanulate caly^x, bluntly pointed, ribbed, the ribs green, yellow, or red. 

 Flowers f inch across, usually bright yellow. Sepals leaf-like, green, fleshy. 



Fig. 137. — S. variicolor Praeger. 



blunt, very unequal, from \ inch to | inch long, from deltoid to oblong-linear or 

 oblong-lanceolate or oblong-spathulate, widened at the base, not spurred pale 

 green, tube very short. Petals ovate-acuminate to lanceolate, with a 'short 

 mucro behind the tip. patent, about equalling the longest sepal, Jg inch long deep 

 yellow, Stamens spreading, slightly shorter than the petals, filaments tapering, 

 yellow, anthers reddish. Scales quadrate, slightly retuse, lemon yellow. Carpels 

 slender, equalling the stamens, at first erect with the inner edges concave and 

 the styles contiguous, soon spreading, but not widely, with erect styles • styles 

 long, slender; occupying nearly half the length of the carpels. Fruit stellate 

 f mch across. 



Flowers August-September. Hardy at Dublin. 



Habitat.— Yunnan. Seed was received from Rev. Pere E. E, 

 Maire in 1 915 from Tong-tchouan, labelled " Eboulis des rochers 

 des pics, altitude 2,800 metres." 



This is a handsome httle plant, and if it proves to be generally hardy, 

 will deserve a place in the rock garden. The flowers are usuaUy of 

 a rich orange-yeUow, but in the batch of plants raised from P^re Maire's 

 seed there was a variety of colour unusual in the genus. Some plants 

 bore pale-yellow flowers, others deep orange, while in others again red 

 colour was added to enhance the deep-yellow blossoms • in one of the 



