STONECROP. 325 



branched, ascending, smooth, pale green, succulent, and from 

 two to four inches in length. The leaves are alternate, nearly 

 erect, short, ovate, obtuse, adnato-sessile ; rather convex and 

 gibbous beneath, prolonged at the base, very succulent and 

 smooth, bright green, numerous, and closely imbricated on the 

 barren shoots. The flowers are arranged in small terminal 

 cymes, which are usually trifid. The calyx consists of five 

 ovate-oblong obtuse sepals. The petals are lanceolate, acumi- 

 nate, spreading, keeled beneath, and of a bright yellow colour. 

 The stamens are ten, with spreading subulate filaments, crowned 

 with reniform two-celled anthers, bursting lengthwise. The 

 germens are five, glabrous, conical, diverging, with a necta- 

 reous scale at the base of each, and taper into subulate styles 

 tipped with simple stigmas. The fruit consists of five carpels 

 or follicles, opening when ripe by a longitudinal chink in front. 

 The seeds are attached to the margins of the suture in two rows. 

 Plate 42, fig. 4, (a) calyx ; (b) entire flower; (c) germen mag- 

 nified ; (d) fruit ; (e) carpel, divided longitudinally to shew the 

 seeds. 



This plant is very common on rocks, walls, roofs of houses, 

 and dry sandy ground, in this country and the rest of Europe ; 

 flowering in June. 



The generic name is derived from sedo, to sit, alluding to 

 the humble growth of the plants upon their native rocks. 

 The pungent acrimony of this species has obtained for it the 

 trivial name acre, and the popular synonymes Biting Stonecrop 

 and Wall Pepper. There is no doubt that this plant is intend- 

 ed by one or other of the species of a»£W, enumerated by the 

 ancient Greek writers. 



There are several other indigenous species of Sedum, for the 

 characters of which we must refer to works on general Botany. 

 They are all found, in common with the rest of the natural 

 order to which they belong, in the driest situations, exposed to 

 the fiercest rays of the noon-day sun, and where other plants 

 seem incapable of finding nutriment. But as De Candolle 

 observes, soil is to them a something to keep them stationary 

 rather than a source of nutriment, which in these plants is 

 conveyed by myriads of mouths, invisible to the naked eye, 

 but covering all their surface, to the juicy beds of cellular tissue 

 which lie beneath them. 



