SEDUM NEVII. NEVIUS STONE-CROP. S"J 



giving, rather than assuaging, burning sensations, as the original 

 name suggests. But no mention is made by any author of any 

 particular qualities, good or bad, in connection with Amer- 

 ican species. They will, therefore, be of interest chiefly to the 

 lover of the curious in nature and the cultivator of flowers, to 

 whom all the species are very welcome. 



Our present species is one of the handsomest of American 

 kinds. It has not long been known, having been discovered 

 within the past twenty years by Dr. R. D. Nevius, a clergyman 

 of Alabama, on rocky cliffs near Tuscaloosa in that State. The 

 botany of the South has not yet been well worked up, and 

 zealous collectors are continually finding new species which have 

 wholly escaped the notice of others before them, or new loca- 

 tions for some that have been supposed rare. Since Dr. Nevius 

 found this plant, Mr. Wm. M. Canby has collected it on Salt 

 Pond Mountain in Virginia, and Mr. Howard Shriver on the 

 rocky banks of the New River, still farther north, and it is quite 

 possible that it may be found abundantly in many other places 

 in the great Alleghany range. In regard to its beauty when 

 growing in its natural location, Mr. Shriver thus spoke of it in 

 the first volume of the Botanical Gazette, at the time of his dis- 

 covery on New River: "Our cliffs are now (early spring) cov- 

 ered with saxifrage, draba, and a variety of Sedum with snowy 

 flowers. The stems shoot up from amid rosulate leaves, which 

 are obovate or very short spatulate, often not rounded, but 

 wedge-shaped, giving the idea at first of Draba ramosissima. 

 Stem-leaves spatulate to linear spatulate, close set on the high 

 simple stem, and more sparingly on the three branches at the 

 summit. Parts of the flower in fours (the centre one in fives), 

 ovate-lanceolate, somewhat pointed petals twice the length of the 

 ovate blunt sepals. It is probably S. Nevii, which Mr. Canby 

 found on Salt Pond Mountain." Our full-face view of an en- 

 larged flower (Fig. 2) accurately illustrates the plant as described 

 by Mr. Shriver, although the specimen from which the drawing 

 was made, and for which we are indebted to Mr. Jackson Dawson, 



