132 ALPINES AND BOG-PLANTS 



CHAPTER VII 



Let others specialise on Sedum and Sempervivum. I 

 frankly confess that I approach these two great races 

 with hesitation. I have never been able to take more 

 than a mild fancy for even the prettiest of Sedums. 

 Justice must be done, though, even if deliberately, and I 

 will place it solemnly on my record that the average 

 Stonecrops are useful, easy-going inhabitants of the 

 rockery, if kept in due bounds. Having said so much I 

 will add my own personal sentiment, which is the same 

 for Sedum as for Drdba — a mere recognition of merit, 

 uncoupled with any warmer feeling. The Stonecrops 

 nearly all thrive anywhere, and are typical rock-plants, 

 with the one exception of our own dear little marsh 

 plant, the most charming species of the family — Sedum 

 villosum, found in small colonies here and there in wet 

 places on the high moors round the base of Ingleborough. 

 Sedum album has white flowerheads, and is a rare native of 

 attractive appearance. It turns out an appalling weed, 

 which one throws away in cartloads without ever suc- 

 ceeding in eradicating (my whole stock sprang from 

 two crushed sprigs sent me in a letter : two years later I 

 was weeding up barrow-loads of it without effect). Sedum 

 anglicum is another rare little native, much neater and 

 smaller, white-flowered and of modest habit and glaucous- 

 blue leaves — perhaps the prettiest of all Sedums for 



