Sedum L.

Volume IV (1988) - Flora of New Zealand Naturalised Pteridophytes, Gymnosperms, Dicotyledons

SEDUM L.

Annual or perennial herbs, sometimes subshrubs, often forming mats. Lvs usually alternate, rarely opposite or verticillate, simple, entire or toothed, usually spaced along stem, sometimes crowded in terminal rosettes, occasionally scale-like. Infl. a terminal or axillary, corymbose, helicoid or secund cyme (often several cymes terminating a main inflorescence stem), sometimes paniculate, usually many-flowered. Fls 4-5-(9)-merous, erect to horizontal. Sepals free or almost so, equal or unequal. Petals free or slightly connate at base, erect or patent with corolla often star-like, white, yellow, greenish, pink to purple, very rarely blue, thin and scarcely succulent. Stamens usually twice as many as petals and in 2 equal whorls, occasionally as many as petals and in 1 whorl, free or occasionally epipetalous, exserted. Scales free, very variable in shape and size. Carpels free or almost so, usually 4-5. Seeds usually numerous, sometimes 1-few.

Key

Lvs usually < 10 mm long, scale-like or very thick and succulent, or if longer and thinner (in shade) then fls white; cymes with few fls, or if many then white; fls white, pinkish or yellow

Lvs > 10 mm long, never scale-like, thin or succulent; cymes typically with many fls; fls yellow or sometimes pink to rose

Fls yellow

1. *acre

Fls white, sometimes ± pink

Lvs covered with minute glandular hairs, glaucous

*dasyphyllum ζ

Lvs glabrous, green, sometimes red-tinged

Lvs loosely imbricate or more distantly spaced, not scale-like; infl. 5-15 cm high, on an almost leafless peduncle; fls many

2. *album

Lvs scale-like, densely and closely imbricate; infl. < 2 cm high, on a short or indistinct peduncle; fls up to 10

*liebmannianum ζ

Lvs opposite, toothed; petals pink to rose

Lvs alternate or whorled, entire; petals yellow

Plant prostrate with stems rooting at nodes; roots herbaceous

8. *spurium

Plant with stems erect and arising from a woody rootstock

7. *spectabile

Plants prostrate or nearly so; stems ± slender, rooting at nodes for much of their length; lvs terete to flattened, sometimes brownish red towards apex and on margins; old peduncles usually dying after the first year

Plants erect to spreading; stems ± woody towards base and usually stout, or if not stout or woody then lvs terete and ± strongly tinged red; old peduncles persisting for several years

Lvs flattened and elliptic to elliptic-obovate, usually 10-27 mm wide

3. *decumbens

Lvs terete or flattened and linear to linear- lanceolate, < 3 mm wide

Lvs always partly in whorls of (3)-4-5, green; anthers red

* mexicanum ζ

Lvs all alternate, glaucous or green; anthers yellowish

Lvs crowded but extending down erect part of shoot, subcylindric, rounded above and below without obvious margins

6. *reflexum

Lvs densely crowded in a cone-like cluster at shoot ends, linear or narrowly linear-lanceolate, convex below and flat above with obtuse angles

4. *forsteranum

Plants diffuse, usually 20-50 cm high; lvs ± flattened, oblanceolate to obovate or ellipsoid-obovoid, usually 2.5-6 cm long, green except sometimes for red margin

5 *praealtum

Plants compact, < 15 cm high; lvs terete and cylindric, 1-2 cm long, almost always with pronounced red flush

* × rubrotinctum ζ

c. 600 spp., N. temperate and subtropical regions, 1 in the Andes of Peru. Naturalised spp. 12.

The treatment here is based on Praeger, R. L., Jour. Roy. Hort. Soc. 46: 1-314 (1921), and Evans, R. L., Handbook of Cultivated Sedums (1983). Many spp. of this very large genus, other than those which are wild, are cultivated in N.Z., being mainly grown on rockeries, in garden borders, and on rock walls and banks. The Mexican spp. are mainly cultivated in warmer areas whereas the hardier Eurasian spp. are grown throughout N.Z. Like most Crassulaceae, Sedum spp., stonecrops, readily grow from detached lvs and shoots, and sometimes form freely rooting mats, and so additional spp. can be expected to become wild. The main spp. which show a tendency to spread within gardens but have not yet been reported wild are: S. sarmentosum Bunge and S. kamtschaticum Fischer et C. Meyer, both from E. Asia, and S. pachyphyllum Rose and S. spathulifolium Hook., both from N. America. Also, Graptopetalum paraguayense (N. E. Br.) Walther, ghost plant, usually still known as Sedum weinbergii Rose, is a very persistent relic of cultivation and sometimes appears ± wild.

Sedum L.

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