MELANANTHERUM De Candolle, 1828

Sedum album var. melanantherum  (De Candolle) Fröderström (1932) / Sedum anglicum ssp. melanantherum  (De Candolle) Maire (1932) / Sedum album ssp. melanantherum  (De Candolle) J. A. Huber (1936)

Sedum rivulare  Boissier (1838) / Sedum anglicum var. rivulare (Boissier) Boissier (1840)

Distribution : Southern Spain (Sierra Nevada), Morocco (Great Atlas); wet places, 2000 - 3600 m.

Description (according to IHSP 2003) :

Small perennial herbs usually with long and slender stems, these trailing and rooting, branching,  often forming dense mats.

Leaves alternate, densely imbricate, narrowly oblong, sessile with a small spur, obtuse, semi- or subterete, pale glaucous green, ± 5 x 1,5 mm.

Inflorescences : flowering branches 4 -12 cm tall, inflorescences few-flowered cymes with (1 -) 2 (- 3) cincinni, bracts 2 per flower.

Flowers  5-merous, sessile or subsessile, sepals basally free, spurred, oblong, 2 - 2,5 mm, petals slightly connate at the base, lanceolate, white or pinkish, often with a reddish keel, ± 4 mm, filament white, style white or pink, anthers dark red.

Cytology : 2n=26

Until recently, many authors such as Webb & al. (1993) regarded S. melanantherum as a subspecies or variety of S. anglicum. It differs, however, both cytologically as well as phytochemically (Stevens 1995), and the two species are reproductively isolated.  S. melanantherum is the type of the monotypic series Melananthera 't Hart.