STOLONIFER (S.G.Gmelin) 't Hart, 1995

Synonyms :

Sedum stoloniferum  S.G.Gmelin (1774) / Asterosedum stoloniferum  (S.G.Gmelin) Grulich (1984)

Sedum ibericum  Steven ex M. von Bieberstein (1819)

Sedum hybridum  d'Urville ex Boissier (1872)  

Phedimus stoloniferus (incorrect name)  see Note below

Subgenus Phedimus

Distribution : Caucasus, northern Iran (Talish), eastern Turkey (northern Anatolia, Hatay); forests, moist banks etc., to 2150 m; frequently cultivated throughout Europe and North America and often naturalized (to 60° N in Scandinavia).

Description (according to IHSP, 2003) :

Perennial herbs with branched creeping sterile stems, rooting at the nodes, to 12 cm long.

Leaves crowded at the stem tips, opposite, obovate to orbicular or elliptic, obscurely crenate or dentate, mamillate, cuneate, pseudopetiolate with a 5 - 10 mm long petiole, lamina fleshy, 10 - 25 x 6 - 10 mm.

Flowering branches erect or ascending, simple, glabrous or papillose, 10 - 45 cm.

Inflorescences lax (10- to) 20- to 30 flowered corymbs, bracts broadly oblanceolate, mamillate, 4 - 8 mm.

Flowers 5-merous, sessile, sepals connate, for up to 1 mm, oblanceolate, glabrous, 2.5 – 4.5 mm, petals lanceolate, shortly mucronate, widely spreading, 6 - 8 mm, pale pink, anthers red.

Cytology : 2n = 14

The report of 2n = 28 for P. stoloniferus Baldwin (1935) is certainly erroneous as the accompanying figure clearly shows the large chromosomes of the P. spurius karyotype.

P. stoloniferus is endemic to one of the wettest areas on planet earth. (R. Stephenson)

Note : 

“Stoloniferus” or “stolonifer” : the correct ending is a question of grammatical gender. Phedimus is masculine and the masculine form of the specific adjective is stolonifer and not stoloniferus. In horticultural literature, the masculine form is very commonly misspelled -ferus-, probably because concerning the masculine form of many adjectives it is the suffix -us which is correct.