172 CEASSULACE^. (OUPINE FAJIILY.) 



3. SEDUM, Tourn. Stone-crop. Orpine. 



Sepals and petals 4 or 5. Stamens 8 or 10. Pods many-seeded ; a little scale 

 at the base of each. — Chiefly perennial, smooth, and thick-leaved herbs, with 

 the flowers cymose or one-sided. Petals almost always naiTOw and acute or 

 pointed. (Name from sedeo, to sit, alluding to the manner in which these plants 

 fix themselves upon rocks and walls.) 



« Flowers perfect and sessile, as it were spiked along one side of spreading flowering 

 branches or of the dioisions of a scorpioid cyme, the first or central flower mostly 

 b-merous and 10-androus, the ot/iers of en 4-ntei'OUs and 8~androus. 



1. S. iCRE, L. (Mossy Stone-crop.) Spreading on the ground, moss- 

 like ; leaves very small, alternate, almost imbricated on the branches, ovate, 

 very thick; petals yellow. — Escaped from cultivation to rocky roadsides, &c. 

 July. (Adv. from Eu.) 



2. S. puleh^llum, Michx. Stems ascending or trailing (4'- 12' high) ; 

 leaves terete, linear-filiform, much crowded ; spikes of the cyme several, densely 

 flowered ; petals rose-purple. — Virginia to S. Illinois, Kentucky, and southward ; 

 also cultivated in gardens. July. 



3. S. N^vii, Gray. Stems spreading, simple (3' -5' high) ; leaves all alter- 

 nate, those of the sterile shoots wedrje-obovate or spatulate, on flowering stems lin- 

 ear-spatulale and flattish ; cyme about 3-spiked, densely flowered ; petals white, 

 more pointed than in the next; the flowering 3 or 4 weeks later; leaves and 

 blossoms smaller. — Mountains of Virginia (Salt Pond Mountain, W. M. Can- 

 by) to Alabama (R. D. Nevius). 



4. S. tern&tum, Michx. Stems spreading (3' -6' high); leaves flat; the 

 lower whorled in threes, wedge-obovate, the upper scattered, oblong ; cyme 3-spiked, 

 leafy ; petals white. — Rocky woods, Penn. to Illinois and southward : common 

 in gardens. May, June. 



* * Flowers in a terminal naked and regular cyme or dttster, more or less pedunckd: 



leaves flat, obovate or oblong, mostly alternate. 



-I- Flowers perfect, 5-nierous, 10-androus. 



5. S. telephioides, Michx. Stems ascending (6'-12' high), stout, leafy 

 to the top; leaves oblong or oval, entire or sparingly toothed; cyme small; 

 petals flesh-color, ovate-lanceolate, taper-pointed ; pods tapei-ing into a slender style. 

 — Dry rocks, Alleghany Mountains, from Maryland southward, and sparingly 

 in Is^ew Jersey ? W. New York ? and Indiana. June. — Too near the next. 



6. S. TELi;pniu,ir, L. (Garden Orpine or Live-for-ever.) Stems 

 erect (2° high), stout; leaves oval, obtuse, toothed; cymes compound; petals 

 pur//le, oblong-kmccolate ; pods abruptly pointed with a short style. — Hocks and 

 banks, escaped from cultivation in some places. July. (Adv. from Eu.) 



-1- ■*- Floioers diiecious, mostly i-mnoiis and 8-androiis. 



7. S. Khodiola, DC. (Roseroot.) Stems erect (.'">' -lO' high) ; leaves 

 oblong or oval, smaller than in the preceding ; flowers in a close cyme, greenish- 

 yellow, or the fertile turning purplish. — Pennsylvania, on cliffs of Delaware 

 River, aliovc Easton ! {Pnfessors Porter Sr Green) ; Quoddy Head, Jlaine (Prof 

 Verrill), and northward. May, June. (Eu.) 



