ACCOUNT OF GENUS SEDUM AS FOUND IN CULTIVATION. 25I 



Not hardy. 



Habitat. — Cerro San Filipe, Oaxaca, Mexico. 



Material sent from Washington (under the name S. diversifoUum 

 Rose), has grown freely but has never flowered, and the description 

 of the flower given above is quoted from Rose [loc. cit.). 



Derives its name from its habitat, Oaxaca. 



120. Sedum nudum Alton (fig. 147). 



S. nudum Alton, " Hort. Kew." ed. i, 2, 112, 1789. Lowe, " Flor. 

 Madeira," 1, 324. 



Illustration. — De CandoUe, " Plantes Grasses," tab. 155. 



The only one of several interesting endemic Madeiran species 

 which is in cultivation. The present plant has green, egg-shaped leaves 

 (pale green in the plants I have seen), resembling those of short-leaved 

 forms of S. album, and few-flowered cymes of small greenish-yellow 

 flowers. In nature it forms a low, tangled subshrub, but the culti- 

 vated plant has weak, sinuous stems which sprawl on the ground. 

 It is closely allied to S. lancerottense R. P. Murray, which is confined 

 to Teneriffe ; the differences between the two are discussed under 

 the latter species. 



Description. — A small, glabrous evergreen. Stems sinuous, in nature woody 

 and forming a low subshrub, in cultivation weak, sprawling and occasionally 

 rooting, bare below, with many ascending leafy shoots a few inches long. Leaves 

 green or glaucous, sessile, obovate-oblong, very blunt, nearly terete, slightly 

 flattened on face, alternate, set at right angles to the stem, up to | inch long by 

 r\ broad and thick. Inflorescence a small few-flowered cyme, generally of 2 or 3 

 simple branches with a central flower, flowers about 4 to 10 in all, bracts 

 resembling the leaves. Buds ovate, blunt, with greenish ribs. Flowers up to | 

 inch across, the lowest on a pedicel longer than the flower, the uppermost sessile. 

 Sepals resembling the leaves, green, very fleshy, unequal, wide-spreading, obovate, 

 very blunt, almost exactly egg-shaped, not spurred. Petals nearly twice the 

 sepals, Unear-lanceolate, rather bluntish, wide-spreading, greenish yellow, 

 keeled. Stamens 10, spreading, shorter than the petals, filaments yellow, 

 anthers brownish yellow. Scales orange, cuneate, notched, \ the carpels. Carpels 

 divergent even in bud, wide-spreading later, greenish yellow, styles slender i 

 stellate in fruit, when they are surrounded by the very swollen, unequal sepals.^ 



Flowers May (Kew, gentle heat) ; June (cold frame). Not hardy. 



Habitat. — Madeira. 



De Candolle states that it flowers in summer at Kew, in winter 

 at the Jardin des Plantes. It is a shy bloomer in cultivation, and 

 the flowers which I was fortunate enough to get at Kew were the first 

 that had been noticed on the plant, which has been long in culti- 

 vation there. De Candolle states that Masson, who discovered 

 it, sent it to England in 1777. Aiton ("Hortus Kewensis ") states 

 that it was received at Kew in that year. The plant, as cultivated 

 there now, is quite possibly derived from the original stock. Lowe 

 says the leaves are generally bright full green, occasionally pale or 

 glaucous. The Kew plant is pale green, and produced as many as 

 sixteen flowers on the inflorescence, the three branches of which were 

 forked. 



