ACCOUNT OF GENUS SEDUM AS FOUND IN CULTIVATION. 3 



The cases in which the descriptions or figures are in whole or part 

 not drawn from living material may be summarized as follows : 

 Fresh material not available— 



S. ruhrkaule, S. Hemsleanum, S. japonicum. S. Zentaro- 

 Tashiroi. 

 Plants which have not flowered with me, or which died before 

 flowering : 



S chapalense, S. cyaneum, S. dendroideum. S. frutescens S 

 Hallii, S. lenophylloides, S. oaxacanum, S. polyrhtzum, S. irul- 

 lipetalum. 

 Description helped out by dried material : 



S. Cockerellii, S. glabrtm, S. purpureoviride, S. Stevenianum. 

 With the design of helping those to whom the technical terms of 

 descriptive botany are unfamiliar, I have prefaced the description of 

 each species with a brief note of the characteristics by which it may 

 be distinguished from its nearest allies. I would like to warn readers 

 that reliance on the figures alone may sometimes lead them astray 

 in a genus so large and complicated ; even if the full description of 

 the plant is not used, a careful study of the short note mentioned is 

 quite necessary if pitfalls are to be avoided. 



II. Historical. 

 As might be expected in a genus of which a number of species 

 of sufficiently noteworthy appearance, grow in regions associated 

 with early civilizations, species of Sedum were known to the ancient 

 naturalists (e.g. S. Ccpaea. S. maximum. S. roseum), being referred to 

 by Greek and Latin writers ; these and others were likewise known 

 to the medieval herbahsts. Coming to the dawn of modern botany 

 we find 15 species enumerated in the first edition (1753) ot 

 Linnaeus' "Species Plantarum," all of these being European except 

 S Aizoon and S. hyhridum (both Siberian) and 5. verhcillatum 

 ( Japanese. &c.). In the 4th edition (1799) of the same work the 

 humber has risen to 29. mainly by the addition of other European 

 species In 1828 De Candolle (" Prodromus," 3. p. 401) enumer- 

 ates 88 species of Sedum. some of them tentatively as non satis 

 noia, but almost all now recognized as good species. De Candolle s 

 list includes a good many additions from the Caucasus, a few from 

 Siberia, the Himalayas. Japan, North Africa, the Umted States, 

 and Mexico, and one each from Madeira. Ecuador, and Venezuela 

 In 1862 Bentham and Hooker (" Genera Plantarum," 1, p. 660) put 

 down the number of known species at 120. This total is increased to 

 130 in standard works published during the next ten or twenty years, 

 and this figure is raised only to 140 in such standard recent works 

 asENGLERandPRANTL, "NaturlichePflanzenfamihen, m. a (1891) 



