PROCEEDINGS 



OF 



T H 1^] ROYAL IRISH A C A D E M Y 



PAPERS READ BEFORE THE ACADEMY 



I. 



ON SPECIES OF SEDUM COLLECTED IN CHINA BY L. H. BAILEY 



IN 1917. 



By E. LLOYD PEAEGEE. 



Plates I-III. 



Read January 27. Published Makch 28, 1919. 



I HAA'E recently examined the plants belonging to the genns Sedum eompiised 

 in the collections made in China in 1917 by Mr. L. H. Bailey, of Ithaca, 

 New York. The area traversed by him lay in the provinces of Kiangsi, 

 Hupeh, and Honan. The portion of Kiangsi which was explored had 

 previously been worked over by E. H. Wilson, but the northern border of 

 Hupeh and part of Honan, wliere large collections were made, had not been 

 explored previously by a botanist. The Sedunis enumerated below were 

 obtained in latitude 29° to 32° N. and at no great elevation — from near sea- 

 level to some 3.500 feet. The collection is of a more lowland character than 

 most of those which have yielded the many new species of Sedum described 

 in recent years from China, which have come largely from the high ranges 

 of Yunnan and the great gorges of the Mekong and Yangtse, over by the 

 Tibet border. 



The collection, though small, is of considerable interest. The eleven 

 numbers include eight species, three of which are new. Of the species 

 previously described, *S'. lineare Thunli.. long known fnim Jajian. is hitherto 

 unrecorded from China. Of the new species, one plant is related to a 

 small and well-marked group which, as hitherto known, was con lined to the 

 Caucasus and Asia Minor, while another is a remarkable species with leaves 

 which are unique in the large genus to which it belongs, and witli other 

 unusual characters showing interesting affinities. 



Chinese Sedums are now so many in number, the type specimens are so 

 widely scattered in herbaria and the descriptions in botanical literature, that 



n.I.A. PKOC, VOL. XXXV, SECT. B. ['1,1 



