16 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



February, 1912 



masonry, hides bareness, and reconciles 

 the environment to a new garden! 



The mossy sedums can be divided into 

 three groups, the yellow-flowered, white, 

 and pinkish. The first three species have 

 yellow flowers. 



WALL PEPPER OR BITING STONECROP 



The commonest of all the stonecrops is 

 the wall pepper or biting stonecrop (5. 

 acre), so called because of the acrid taste 

 of the leaves. (See page 17). This is 

 the one that makes enchanting patches of 

 3'ellow on the thatched roofs of English 

 cottages. I have seen brick walls crowned 

 with it for nearly a quarter of a mile, as it 

 is a common practice to leave out the 

 central row of bricks on the top of a 

 garden wall in order to establish this and 

 other flowers that have a genius for grow- 

 ing in a pinch of soil. In America it has 

 escaped from cultivation and often makes 

 a pretty picture in neglected cemeteries. 

 This is undoubtedly the best species for 

 naturalizing on a large scale, because it 

 is the cheapest and spreads the quickest, 

 sowing its own seed freely, like a wild 

 flower. Large clumps cost about six cents 

 each, by the hundred. I advise every" 

 beginner to get a few plants of wall pepper 

 and, if he likes it, work up a large stock of 

 it — enough to cover a rose bed, or a 

 bulb bed, or to edge a garden path. A 

 ten-cent packet of seeds will do wonders. 

 Or you can simply break off the little 

 stems, stick them in the ground, and they 

 will grow as happily as geranium slips in 

 a bench of silver sand. 



The carpet bedding fraternity affect 

 a "golden moss" (var. aureum*, which 

 has showier tips in spring, the abnormal 

 color disappearing with the summer heat. 

 Thev consider the silverv-leaved form 



(var. elegans") less effective. The only 

 variety that interests a collector is var. 

 majus. which has flowers about three 

 quarters of an inch across arranged in a 

 two-sided cyme, whereas [the ordinary 

 type has flowers about half an inch across 

 in one-sided cymes. 



A quaint old name for the wall pepper 

 is '"love entangle."' The plant grows two 

 or three inches high, blooms in July, and 

 has foliage of a cheerful light green. The 

 leaves are only a quarter of an inch long 



The English stonecrop (S. Anglicvm). one of the 

 prettiest of the white-flowered species, sometimes 

 tinted rose 



The blue stonecrop l S. eaeruleum). an annual, is the 

 only one of its color among the mossy or carpeting 

 kinds 



and look like little pickles. As a carpet 

 it has a rougher and harder texture than 

 the others, out this is not objectionable. 



THE STX-ROWED STONECROP 



The six-rowed stonecrop (S. sexangulare), 

 \i very close to the wall pepper, according 

 to the books, but in real life it has a wholly 

 different expression as you may see by 

 the picture — softer in texture and a 

 darker green. I first fell in love with this 

 at Gravetye, where I saw it carpeting rose 

 beds in William Robinson's revolutionary 

 rose garden. It was not in flower, but 

 the reddish cast of the new growth was 

 charming. These passing spring colors have 

 no botanical value and never get into the 

 books but they are the joy of the gardener 

 who lives with his plants. The leaves of 

 these plants are, fortunately, tasteless, but 

 before you venture on a taste, see if they 

 are in sis or seven rows instead of five, 

 and oblong rather than ovoid. 



REELEXED STONECROP OR STONE ORPINE 



The reflexed stonecrop or stone orpine 

 (S. rcflexum), is the only one I know with 

 leaves bent back, instead of being held 

 forward or at right angles. The whole 

 effect is that of some rich woodland moss 

 growing eight or ten inches high with soft 

 linear leaves about three quarters of an 

 inch long. These leaves are sharp at the 



Sedum rupestre. a British species, bears rosettes of 

 leaves at the tips of its barren, trailing stems 



apex, while the other two yellow-flowered 

 species have blunt leaves. I have not seen 

 the silvery, glaucous, and dwarf forms (vars. 

 albescens, glaucum and minor). Bluish, 

 whitish and golden-leaved varieties are 

 to be expected throughout the genus. 



A EOURTH YELLOAV-ELOWERED STONECROP 



Sedum rupestre, pictured above, differs 

 from all the mossy stonecrops, so far 

 as I know, by its extraordinarily long 

 flower stems which look somewhat floppy 

 and gawky in the picture. The house- 

 leeks, also, often have sprawling stems 

 and there is a Sempercivum rupestre, with 

 which our plant should not be confused. 

 Robinson says that Sedum rupestre and 

 redexum are worth naturalizing on walls 

 and ruins, along paths, and on the less 

 important surfaces of the rock garden. 

 Unlike the other yellow-flowered species 

 5. rupestre bears its flowers in flat clusters 

 or corymbs. 



THREE WHITE-FLOWERED STONECROPS 



We now come to three white-flowered 

 species, the most exquisite of which is 

 dubbed "worm grass" — Sedum album. 

 "Absolutely beautiful" I should call it, 

 if I did not know that beauty is entirely 

 subjective. As a carpeting plant it seemed 

 to me one of the most refined in Mr. Rob- 

 inson's garden, though not very distinc- 

 tive when out of bloom. But the bloom 

 of it is so airy, and lace-like that I fell in 

 love with it when it flowered in my own 

 garden. The blossoms are only half an 

 inch across, and the reddish anthers add 

 to the daintiness. It grows about three 

 inches high and blooms in June. This 

 plant is really quite inexpensive — a thou- 

 sand can be bought for about ten dollars. 



Sedum Monregalense or cruciatum is 

 supposed to have flowers only a quarter 

 of an inch across or half the size of 5. album, 

 but the plant I bought under this name 

 had flowers twice as large as those of album. 

 The only distinction between the two 

 species that I could get out of the books is 

 a very slender one, the buds of album 

 being oblong and those of Monregalense 

 roundish. The plant which I bought for 

 Monregalense had larger but fewer flowers 

 than album, and I liked better the delicacy 

 and grace of album. 



The English stonecrop (S. Anglicutn), 

 was not advertised for sale in America 



