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broadleaf stonecrop

Habit Plants perennial, forming open mats, glabrous; stolons slender, 0.4–1.3 mm when dried.
Stems

extensively stoloniferous, with dense terminal rosettes.

Flowering shoots

erect; simple, 3–14 cm;

stem leaves alternate, spatulate-oblong or elliptic-oblong; widest at or below middle, different from rosette leaves.

Leaves

rosette leaves spreading, usually nearly parallel to ground, usually forming flat rosettes, spatulate, narrowing to petioles, 7–19 × 4.5–10 mm, 5 × as wide as thick, green or pruinose and white, bases not spurred, not scarious, sometimes muricate or papillose near margins;

tips rounded or truncate;

surfaces usually glaucous.

Inflorescences

cymes with ~30 flowers, 3-branched;

branches forked;

bracts oblong-spatulate or linear.

Flowers

5-parted;

sepals spreading to erect, lanceolate, linear-lanceolate, oblong-ovate or obovate; ~2.5 × 1.5 mm, green to yellow-green;

tips acute or obtuse;

surface glaucous or pruinose;

petals strongly spreading above erect base, linear to oblanceolate, 4.5–9 mm, yellow;

tips acute;

filaments yellow;

anthers yellow.

Fruits

erect until mature then spreading, fused basally, brown.

Sedum spathulifolium

Distribution
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Rocks, cliffs and road cuts. Flowering Apr–Aug. 0–2400 m. Casc, Col, CR, ECas, Est, Sisk, WV. CA, WA; north to British Columbia. Native.

Sedum spathulifolium is highly variable. If subspecies are recognized, most of our plants are S. spathulifolium ssp. spathulifolium. A coastal form with thick, white-pruinose leaves, short, stout stolons, dense inflorescences and thick, crowded stem leaves can be called S. s. ssp. pruinosum (if it is considered a strictly coastal entity). If it is considered to include strongly glaucous or pruinose plants of the Coast Range that are less dense in growth form, the name S. s. var. minus would be applied. Plants with thin, green leaves, numerous long, slender stolons that tend to grow upwards before growing out, paler flowers, and more spreading follicles can be called S. s. ssp. purdyi, a rare form known only from southern Josephine County, and Del Norte and Siskiyou counties in California.

Source Flora of Oregon, volume 2, page 605
Barbara Wilson, Richard Brainerd, Nick Otting
Sibling taxa
S. acre, S. album, S. debile, S. divergens, S. lanceolatum, S. laxum, S. leibergii, S. moranii, S. oblanceolatum, S. oreganum, S. oregonense, S. radiatum, S. stenopetalum, S. thartii
Synonyms Sedum spathulifolium ssp. pruinosum, Sedum spathulifolium ssp. purdyi, Sedum spathulifolium ssp. spathulifolium, Sedum spathulifolium var. minus, Sedum spathulifolium var. pruinosum, Sedum spathulifolium var. spathulifolium
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