JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
but the majority are stable and distinct plants recognizable at a glance, 
and more easily diagnosed than, for instance, the Saxifrages, which 
nevertheless, in gardens, are usually more correctly named. 
The confusion among the Sedums appears to be due mainly to 
the fact that some of them are rampant growers which invade the 
territory of neighbouring plants and overwhelm them. In nurseries 
this undoubtedly leads to the intruders being sent out sometimes 
under the names of the species which they have ousted. The smallest 
scrap of many of these plants — in many cases single leaves — will take 
root and grow, and thus pieces accidentally dropped or carried by 
wind or other agencies may establish the species at a distance from 
the parent. Again, some of the species of the rupestre group, notably 
5. altissimum and S. Douglasii, have a habit of dropping in autumn 
numerous short barren shoots, which are rolled about by wind and 
so on, and take root wherever they find a refuge. There is little doubt 
that these facts go far to account for the numerous names under 
which common free-growing Sedums, such as album, acre, sexangulare, 
reflexum, rupestre, anopetalum, altissimum, and spurium are found 
in gardens. But a large number of misnomers are due to mere care- 
lessness. 
Another regrettable feature as regards the Sedums is the number 
of nomina nuda — names which belong to no described species — which 
are found in connexion with them. Many nurserymen's catalogues 
are full of such names. Some are clearly perversions, due to 
carelessness, of well-known names — such, for instance, are Crimea- 
lense for himalense, and glaciate for gracile ; but the majority seem 
to be deliberate unlicensed christenings. I have given elsewhere * 
a list of such of these as I have encountered — and suffered from — 
and it is to be hoped that they will disappear from our catalogues. 
Many of them have not even the merit of being applied consistently 
to any one species. 
Another cause of misnaming among the Sedums is the fact that, 
like most succulents, these plants dry very badly, often losing all 
their leaves in the process, and unless killed with boiling water con- 
tinuing to grow for weeks while being pressed ; herbarium material 
is thus generally poor and unsatisfactory, often almost useless for 
comparison with the living plants, and identification is rendered 
correspondingly difficult. Figures of the species thus assume a special 
value, and many of the Sedums found in cultivation have never been 
drawn, while figures of many others are found only in publications 
inaccessible to the majority of gardeners. For this reason I have 
been at pains to have a drawing made by Miss Eileen Barnes of every 
species of which I could obtain fresh material. The descriptions 
likewise have in every instance where fresh material could be obtained 
been taken from the plants themselves, and checked with the 
descriptions given by the original describer and by leading authorities. 
* Gardeners' Chronicle, 3rd Ser., 56, 334, 191 4. 
