Perennial herb 15 - 35 cm tall Stem: highly branched, prostrate, forming loose mats. The flowering stems are erect. Leaves: alternate, crowded, 5 - 12 mm long, 1 - 2.5 mm wide, lance-linear with a pointed tip, more or less circular in cross-section, succulent. Leaves of the flowering stems have broad spurs at the base. Flowers: borne on a flat to concave inflorescence, with five to nine oblong-egg-shaped sepals 2 - 3 mm long, and five to nine yellow, spreading, 5 - 7 mm long, oblong petals. Fruit: an erect, narrow-beaked, warty follicle, 6 - 7 mm long.
Similar species: Sedum acre, Sedum reflexum, Sedum sarmentosum, and Sedum sexangulare have yellow flowers. Sedum sarmentosum is easy to distingush from the others by its whorled leaf arrangement. Sedum acre and S. sexangulare differ by having divergent follicles and five-parted flowers.
Flowering: June to July
Habitat and ecology: Introduced from the Mediterranean as a garden plant, this species rarely escapes in sandy soils of the Chicago Region.
Occurence in the Chicago region: non-native
Etymology: Sedum comes from the Latin word sedo, meaning "to sit," referring to the manner in which some species attach to walls and rocks. Reflexum means "bent backward."
Fibrous-rooted perennial with much-branched, prostrate stems, forming loose mats, giving rise to many short sterile shoots and a few flowering shoots 1.5-3.5 dm; lvs lance- linear, terete or subterete, apiculate, 5-12 נ1-2.5 mm; infl nodding and subglobose in bud, concave in fr; fls (5-)7(-9)-merous; pet yellow, spreading, 5-7 mm; frs erect; 2n=108. Native of Europe and n. Afr., occasionally escaped from cult. in our range. Summer. (S. rupestre, misapplied)
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
