STONECROP
Family CRASSULACEAE
Sedum spectabile
Perennial
A race of succulents, mainly used in rock gardens
but containing this one species from Japan that
is suitable for the flower border.
The leaves are rounded, fleshy, glaucous and two
inches or more across.
The flowers are about half an inch across, bright
pink in colour and are borne in flat clustered
heads, up to six inches across, on one-and-a-half-feet
stems.
There is a white-flowered variety not often seen,
and a number of forms with deeper coloured flowers
among which Brilliant, of garden origin, is the
finest.
One with variegated foliage is also reported.
Var. atropurpureum has red flowers, and var. maximum
purple foliage.
This plant will thrive, like most succulents,
in the hottest and driest of soils as well as
in shade, and the foliage alone is an attractive
foil to the brighter coloured perennials.
When in bloom the flowers possess some attraction
that cause them to receive the constant attention
of butterflies.
Propagate by offsets and from seed.
The flowering season is in late summer.
Sedum – Stonecrop
Hardy Perennial.
Three to eighteen inches.
Flowers of several colours, May to October.
The Stonecrops are properly rock plants, and
are at home on stonework, old walls, etc.; but
several of them succeed very well in soil if it
has tolerable drainage; they prefer sunny situations,
but they will stand a good deal of shade.
A word of warning is needful as to the rampant
and insidious growth of several varieties, which
smother their neighbours and propagate themselves
by seed and root in a bewildering manner.
They should never be planted near any choice specimens,
and they should have ample room, if admitted at
all, to expand in.
They are mostly low growers, forming mats of green
or glaucous foliage. the flowers are in some cases
inconspicuous; in others they form fine heads
of yellow, white or rose.
Plant rooted pieces in autumn or early spring.
Sedum acre aureum.
Pale yellow-tipped shoots; flowers form a dense
mat of mustard yellow in the spring.
Sedum dasyphyllum. Grey and pink foliage.
Sedum glaucum. A grey-green carpet, useful for edgings
etc.
Sedum obtusum. Deep green leaves.
Sedum spurium rubrum. Grey-green foliage, fine heads
of crimson foliage in August.
Sedum spurium album. White-flowered variety of the
last.
Sedum spectabile (Fabarium). Large fleshy leaves
of a pale yellow green; the flowers eighteen inches
high in September, forming flat heads of dense
pink florets, five or six inches across.
There is a variety called atrosanguineum, which
flowers a deep crimson.
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