1859.] NOTE ON SEDUM SEPTANGULARE. 201 



injurious Erysiphes, Oidiums, Puccinias^ and Botrytises, which 

 in their destructive effects as blights and mildews are too well 

 known. If local botanists Avould study the laws which govern 

 them, and so guard against those conditions which encourage 

 their growth, it would be another step toward rendering the 

 study of botany both useful and pleasing to many who, I fear, 

 look upon it rather as an insignificant, useless, and dry pursuit, 

 — the reverse, in truth, of what it is. 



NOTE ON SEDUM SEPTANGULARE, Haworth. 

 By John Lloyd. 



In June, 1857, I began to grow this plant side by side with 

 Sedum reflexum and some others. They retained their distinc- 

 tive characters of seven- and nine-angled up to July last, when, 

 both being in a gross and luxuriant state, S. septangulare sud- 

 denly became nine-angled in all its larger branches, and which 

 branches have retained the same number of angles up to the 

 present time (Jan. 5th), whilst those which it produced in the 

 autumn took the seven-angled form : S. reflexum has always re- 

 mained nine-angled. This sporting, if it may be called so, may 

 be considered as quite sufl&cient to prevent its ever being consi- 

 dered as anything more than a form of Sedum reflexum, unless 

 some difference should hereafter be discovered in the inflores- 

 cence. Different varieties they certainly are, as a glance at their 

 habit will immediately determine. And what I have above stated 

 is probably not of frequent occurrence, but a casualty caused by 

 the plants being over-luxuriant; and as an illustration of this 

 view of the matter, I may mention that two seven-angled species, 

 which had been treated in the same manner, became nine-angled: 

 these were the British species S. albescens [glaucum, Smith), and 

 the Hungarian species glaucum (Waldstein and Kitaibel) . 



I may perhaps be excused in suggesting that although the 

 number of angles, or rather ranks of leaves, is too vague a dia- 

 gnostic to determine species by, it may still serve to divide this 

 now overgrown genus into sections. We have types of all the 

 angular forms that I have observed in the genus amongst our 

 British species : S. dasypMjllum is four-, S. acre, five-, S. albes- 



N. S. VOL. III. 2 D 



