28 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
parts of the flower, the following descriptions must not be taken as 
exhausting the range of variation which many of the plants possess. 
Series I. Rhodiolae s.s. 
Group I. RosEAE. 
I. Sedum roseum ScopoU (fig. 4). 
S, roseum Scopoli, " Flor. Carniolica," ed. 2, 1, 326, 1772. 
Synonyms. — Rhodiola rosea Linn., " Species Plantarum," 1035. Sedum 
Rhodiola De Candolle, " Prodromus," 3, 401 ; Maximowicz in Bulletin Acad. 
Petersbourg, 29, 128 ; Masters in Gard. Chron., 1878, ii. 267. 
Illustrations. — Sowerby, " English Bot.," ed. 3, pi. 525. De Candolle, 
" Plantes Grasses," tab. 143. " Flora Danica," tab. 183. Cusin and Ansberque, 
"Herb. Flor. Fran9aise, CrassuL," tab. 3. Trans. Russian Hort. Soc, 1863, 
tab. 129. 
A very variable species, of which the common European (and 
British) form is described below. 5. roseum includes plants which 
vary from very glaucous to bright green, with leaves much toothed 
or entire and of a wide range of shape, and flowers green, yellow, 
red, or purple. Nevertheless, it can generally be easily separated 
from its aUies : S. heterodontum, which may be only an extreme variety, 
is distinguished at once by its short, very broad, much-toothed 
leaves ; 5. Stephani has 5-parted (not 4-parted) flowers, usually 
hermaphrodite (instead of dioecious), or if dioecious the male ovaries 
are comparatively large, and the plant is green ; 5. Kirilowii is also 
green, with 5-parted dioecious flowers, the leaves are usually much 
longer than in roseum, and broadest at the base instead of near the 
apex, and the plant taller (a foot or more) ; but the last three are 
variable, and caution is necessary. 
Description. — A glaucous, dioecious, herbaceous perennial. Rootsiock thick, 
branched, eventually long, aerial, covered with grey rind marked with elliptic 
scars of old stems ; old stems not persistent ; scales at the crown of the root- 
stock (from the axils of which the stems arise) chaffy, not well developed. 
Stems annual, several from the summit of each branch of the rootstock, erect, 
unbranched, leafy, smooth, round, 6-12 inches high. Leaves scattered, imbri- 
cate, sessile, strap-shaped to obovate, acute, rounded at base, about inch 
long by f inch broad, fiat, fleshy, glaucous, more or less toothed near the apex, 
larger near summit of stem. Inflorescence terminal, compact, convex. Buds 
subglobular. Flowers 4-parted, yellow or greenish yellow, shorter than the 
pedicels. Mal£ flower : — J inch across ; sepals narrow, tapering ; petals linear, 
blunt, times the sepals ; stamens slightly exceeding the petals, filaments 
yellow, anthers purple ; scales conspicuous, orange, oblong, emarginate ; carpels 
yellow, erect, shorter than the petals. Female flower : — sepals and petals 
similar, linear, greenish, sometimes flushed red ; calyx-tube \ as long as the 
calyx segments ; stamens absent ; scales as in the male ; carpels i\ the petals, 
3 to 4 sixteenths of an inch long, greenish. 
Flowers May (in gardens) ; about July on the mountains. Hardy. 
Habitat. — Circumpolar, ranging in its various forms from Nova 
Zembla and Greenland southward to the Pyrenees, Japan, and New 
Mexico. One of the hardiest of Sedums, capable of enduring, according 
to Kerner, for weeks a temperature of — 10° C. without injury. 
This is the well-known Roseroot, so called from the fragrant 
odour of the fleshy rootstocks, which is strongest when these are 
