558 DECANDRIA. PENTAGYNIA. Sedum, 
White-flowered Stonecrop. Sedum minus teretifol. alb. R. Syn. p. 271. 
Walls and roofs. Walls at Peterborough. Mr. Woodward. Rocks 
above Great Malvern. Nash. Wick Cliffs. Mr. Swayne. (Mountains 
about Winandermere. Dr. Maton. Rydal. Rev. J. Dodd. At Stackpole 
Quay/Pembrokeshire, in abundance. Mr. Milne. Bot. Guide. On the 
Abbey Bridge, near Barnard Castle. Mr. E. Robson, in Winch. Guide. 
House-tops at Forfar, Glamis, &c. Mr. Arnott. Hook. Scot. E.) 
P. June—July. 
S. a'cre. (Leaves alternate, nearly egg-shaped, gibbous, spurred at 
the base: cyme of three branches, leafy. E.) 
Curt. —(E. Bot. 839. E.)— Woodv. 231 —Sheldr. 42— Fuchs. 36— J. B. iii. 
694. 2— Trag. 379— Blackw. 232— Ger. 415— Civs. ii. 61. 1— Ger. Em. 
517. 2 —Park. 735. 7 —U. Ox. xii. 6. row 3. 12— Pet. 42. 9—Bod. 129. 3— 
Lob. Ohs. 205. 4— Park. 735. 8—Matth. 1119— Lonic. i. 59. 2. 
Shoots club-shaped, closely tiled with leaves on every side. Flowers terminal, 
yellow. (. Flowering stems three to six inches high, tufted, branched. 
Flowers not numerous. E.) 
Wall Pepper. (Biting Stonecrop. Welsh: Bywydog boeth ; Pupury 
fagwyr. E.) Walls, roofs, rocks, and dry pastures. P. June—July.* 
S. sexangula're. Leaves subternate, fleshy, somewhat egg-shaped, 
spurred at the base, sessile, nearly upright, tiled in six rows: 
(cyme of three branches, leafy. E.) 
Curt. 225— (E. Bot. 1946. E.) 
Agrees with S. acre in appearance, flowers, and situation, but differs in its 
leaves being, before blossoming, evidently tiled in six rows, and instead it 
having a biting, acrid taste, being insipid. Branches never so copious as 
to form a tuft. Flowers in each branch seldom more than three. Linn. 
Flowers yellow. Number of stamens, &c. uncertain, varying from eight 
to twelve. The rows of leaves most obvious in the young shoots. 
Insipid Yellow Stonecrop. Walls, roofs, and dry pastures. (On the 
walls of Old Sarum. Mr. D. Turner. E. Bot. Near Scarborough. Mr. 
* Wall Pepper is very acrid. Applied externally it blisters. Taken inwardly it excites vo¬ 
miting. In scorbutic cases, and quartan agues, it is an excellent medicine under proper ma¬ 
nagement. This plant continues to grow when hung up by the root, which has been consi¬ 
dered as a proof that it receives its nourishment principally from the air; but from some accu¬ 
rate experiments made by Mr. Gough of Kendal, and communicated to me, it appears that 
though the life of the plant be retained in such a situation for some weeks, it is at the 
expense of the juices which its succulent leaves had previously imbibed. At the end of 
three weeks, the plant suspended in June, before a window with a northern aspect, had 
lost about half its weight, though it had put out some fine fibres from the root, and had 
still life enough to enable it to turn to the light after having been purposely turned from 
it. After being kept in water for twenty four hours, it regained more than half of what it 
had lost. Mr. Gough therefore very justly considers the succulent leaves as reservoirs, 
which support it in dry weather, and are again replenished in rainy seasons, but does not 
admit the truth of common observation that it attracts its nourishment from the air more 
than other plants do. He used plants which had not flowered, because, after flowering, the 
leaves are apt to fall off. Goats eat it; cows, horses, sheep, and swine refuse it. 
(Spreading over the roofs of cottages, or the tops of walls, its golden blossoms exhibit a 
gay appearance ; and mingled occasionally with the crimson or pearly constellations of its 
congeners, arrest the attention even of the superficial observer ; while to the more scruti¬ 
nizing eye of the scientific, each individual flower displays a skill, beauty, and contrivance, 
truly admirable. E.) 
