ACCOUNT OF GENUS SEDUM AS FOUND IN CULTIVATION. 15 



Sports. 



Variation in the way of teratology is rare in the genus. 

 Variegation.— The best known and most pleasing of the few 

 variegated forms of Sedum are S. Sieholdii with a gold patch in the 

 middle of each leaf, and S. kamtschaticum with the leaves splashed 

 with gold. A fine variegated form of 5. maximum is figured in " Flore 

 des Serres," 16, t. 1669. Of S. alboroseum there is a form with a large 

 silver patch in the centre of each leaf, and another with a marginal 

 band of white, or rather of pale green. Two variegated forms of 

 S. acre are in cultivation, one of which has the tips of the shoots golden 

 in spring, the other silver. Of the tender S. lineare a form has been 

 long in cultivation with the leaves silver-margined. 



Of S. Telephium, S. maximum, S. album, S. spathulifolium, forms 

 are grown in which purple pigment is conspicuously present in the 

 stem and leaves. 



In The Garden for 1901, Mr. S. Arnott refers to a small silver- 

 variegated Sedum under the name 5. caespitosum. I have not been 

 able to trace this plant. 



Fasciation. — ^This monstrosity is rare in Sedum, but one re- 

 markable example is frequent in gardens — the " Cock's-comb Sedum," 

 which is a sport of S. reflexum. From Messrs. Backhouse of York 

 came a smaller plant resembling the last, which is possibly a fasciate 

 S. anopetalum, but no normal branch which might flower has been 

 produced yet. I have received from New York a similar sport of 

 the Mexican S. praealtum ; the last was included a few years ago 

 in Haage and Schmidt's list, under the name S. dendroideum cris- 

 tatum. The var. arboreum of S. moranense has a persistent tendency 

 to fasciation at the ends of the branches. 



The botanist who consults the present paper in the hope of finding 

 an epitome or revision of the described varieties of the more variable 

 species of Sedum, such as S. roseum, maximum, Telephium, anopetalum, 

 reflexum, will be disappointed. In the first place, the paper deals 

 only with the plants as found in cultivation ; and in the second place, 

 the varietal characters as found in cultivation themselves vary so 

 much in degree, and are, moreover, so variously grouped, that fre- 

 quently no form can be found differing in more than a single char- 

 acter from that nearest to it ; and these characters individually are 

 not of sufficient importance nor sufficiently stable to warrant the 

 erection upon them of varieties, using the term in its usual botanical 

 sense. 



Thus, if we take three leading characters such as varieties are 

 usually constructed upon in this genus, for instance, shape of leaf, colour 

 of leaf, and colour of flower, and designate the normal characters 

 by a, b,c, and the variants by a',b',c', we shall in a large collection 

 of growing plants, such as the writer got together for the purposes 

 of the present paper, be able to find many of the possible combinations 



