
ORPINE FAMILY. Crassulaceae. 
ORPINE FAMILY. Crassulaceae. 
A rather large family, widely distributed; odd-looking, 
mostly very succulent herbs, with smooth, fleshy leaves 
and stems, without stipules; flowers in clusters; sepals, 
petals, pistils,and stamens, all of the same number, usually 
four or five, sometimes the stamens twice as many; ovary 
superior; receptacle with honey-bearing scales, one behind 
each pistil; pistils separate, developing into small dry pods, 
containing few or many, minute seeds. Some of these 
plants look like tiny cabbages and we are all familiar with 
their tight little rosettes in the formal garden-beds of hotels 
and railway stations, where they are so stiff and un- 
attractive that we hardly recognize them when we find 
them looking exceedingly pretty in their natural homes. 
The Latin name means “thick.” 
There are many kinds of Sedum, no one kind very 
widely distributed; fleshy herbs; leaves usually alternate; 
flowers star-like, often in one-sided clusters; stamens and 
pistils sometimes in different flowers on different plants; 
sepals and petals four or five; stamens eight or ten, on the 
calyx, the alternate ones usually attached to the petals; 
styles usually short. The Latin name means “‘to sit,” 
because these plants squat on the ground, and Stonecrop 
is from their fondness for rocks. 
This makes beautiful golden patches, 
Douglas Stone- 
aa on dry slopes or more or less open hilltops, 
Sedum Douglésii usually among limestone rocks. The 
Yellow reddish stems are from six to ten inches 
Spring, summer 
Northwest tall, the leaves are rather long and narrow, 
thick but flat, forming pretty pale-green 
rosettes, more or less tinged with pink and yellow, and the 
pretty starry flowers are three-quarters of an inch across, 
bright-yellow, with greenish centers, the stamens giving a 
feathery appearance. 
d On moss-covered rocks, moistened by 
aerae Stone- the glistening spray blowing from the 
Sedum Yosemite waterfalls, we find these beau- 
Vosemiténse tiful plants, covering the stones with 
Yellow a brilliant, many-colored carpet. The 
peers flowers are stars of brightest gold, about 
California 
half an inch across and delicately scented, 
and form flat-topped clusters, three or four inches across. 
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