10 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
The most marked feature of the Sedum flora is the occurrence 
in the west of a well-marked group of small perennial species with 
spathulate leaves and mostly yellow flowers, of which S. spathuli- 
folium and S. oreganum, already referred to, are examples. Some 
of these have the petals joined together in the lower portion (thus 
approaching the genus Cotyledon), and have been separated on this 
account from Sedum by some American botanists ; but I have 
preferred to retain them in that genus. 
Literature. — Britton and Rose, " Crassulaceae," in North 
American Flora," 22, Part I., 1905. 
Mexico. 
Mexico, which is now known to be extraordinarily rich in Sedums 
and other Crassulaceae, was until recent years a terra incognita. 
Two species of Sedum, moranense and oxypetaUim, were described 
ih 1823 among the plants collected on Humboldt's voyage (vol. 6, 
pp. 44, 45), and five years later De Candolle included two more, 
dendroideum and ebracteatum, in his " Memoire sur la famille des 
Crassulacees " (1828). As a result of herbarium work carried out in 
connexion with the great " Biologia Centrali- Americana," Hemsley 
was able, in 1879-88, to enumerate 22 species from Mexico in the 
first volume of the botanical section of that publication. During 
the last thirty years the explorations of a number of United States 
botanists have resulted in the discovery of a surprising number of 
new and interesting species of Sedum and of closely aUied plants for 
which new genera have been created, though in a broad sense many 
of them may be ranked as Sedums ; so that the species known from 
Mexico is now verging towards a hundred. Living plants of many 
of these have been sent to the States by their collectors, and are 
in cultivation at Washington and other places. They are still almost 
unknown in British and other European gardens, though many of 
them are handsome and interesting plants, strikingly different in 
appearance from any of the Old World Sedums. By the kindness 
of American correspondents, notably Dr. J. N. Rose (the describer 
of most of the new species) and Dr. N. L. Britton, I have received 
living specimens of a large number of these species. Plants of all or 
nearly all of them have now been placed at Kew, Edinburgh, and 
Dublin (wherever they were not already represented in the collections), 
and we may hope that these interesting species will now become 
better known on this side of the Atlantic. They display a remark- 
able range of form, from stout shrubs several feet in height, such aS^ 
oxypetaliim and praealtiim, to tiny creeping species like compactum 
and humifiisum ; the leaves show every variety of shape and size, 
and the flowers range through almost every hue. Many of the species 
are striking and decorative plants, such as alamosanum, cupressoides, 
Stahlii, Palmeri, helium, nutans, pachyphyllum, and versadense. 
