Stems 4-10 dm × 5-10 mm, from rootstock with cluster of white, tuberous, carrot-shaped roots. Leaves alternate or opposite, sessile or short-petiolate, becoming scarcely smaller distally; blade light yellow-green or glaucous-green, elliptic, 6-10 × 3-4 cm, base rounded or cuneate, margins coarsely serrate or dentate toward apex, apex subacute. Cymes lax, 7-15 cm diam. Pedicels 3-6 mm. Flowers often sterile, 8-10 mm diam.; sepals triangular, 2 mm; petals white with green midribs or greenish, 5-6 mm; stamens absent or 1-10, as long as petals; pistils absent or 1-5, pink, 3-5 mm; styles 1 mm; nectaries whitish, oblong, 1 mm, longer than wide. 2n = 48.

Flowering late summer-fall. Trash heaps, disturbed places; 400-1800 m; introduced; Ark., Ga., Ill., Ind., Iowa, La., Maine, Mass., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Pa., Tenn., Vt., Va., Wis.; Europe (Russia); e Asia.

Plants of Hylotelephium erythrostictum growing in North America as garden escapes seem to be, at least in part, sterile hybrids. R. T. Clausen wrote (1949) that this species is, or (1975) may be, a hybrid of Sedum spectabile A. Boreau and S. viridescens T. Nakai (S. taqueti R. L. Praeger). However, H. erythrostictum has been found in northern Japan with normal flowers, and most descriptions do not mention them as defective (H. Ohba, pers. comm.). Some plants wild in North America clearly have defective flowers; others seem not to.

A. E. Radford et al. (1968) called members of this species Sedum spectabile A. Boreau, which is a native of China and Korea and often grown in gardens but not known to escape. Sedum spectabile is similar but may be recognized by its relatively small, pink flowers with conspicuously exserted stamens (R. V. Moran 1964).

Perennial herb to 40 cm tall

Stem: erect to somewhat spreading.

Leaves: mostly opposite, 3 - 8 cm long, 1 - 3.5 cm wide, narrow and inversely egg-shaped to egg-shaped or nearly round, non-toothed to wavy-edged, flat, succulent, covered with a whitish waxy coating (glaucous).

Flowers: borne in a somewhat open and mostly flat-topped inflorescence (corymb), with zero to ten stamens and five white (sometimes pinkish) petals 4.5 - 6 mm long with a green midvein.

Fruit: a sterile dry follicle.

Similar species: Sedum alboroseum, Sedum album, Sedum purpureum, Sedum spurium, and Sedum ternatum have white to pink or purple flowers. Sedum album is easily distinguished by having leaves that are circular in cross-section and creeping stems. Sedum spurium and S. ternatum also have creeping stems. Sedum purpureum has deep pink petals and whorled or alternate leaves with teeth.

Flowering: September

Habitat and ecology: Most likely introduced from Asia, this species is occasionally found in ditches and near homes with rock gardens.

Occurence in the Chicago region: non-native

Notes: Sedum alboroseum is a sterile triploid (having three copies of each chromosome instead of two) from Japan and it may be a hybrid of S. spectabile and S. viridescens.

Etymology: Sedum comes from the Latin word sedo, meaning "to sit," referring to the manner in which some species attach to walls and rocks. Alboroseum means white-rose.

Author: The Morton Arboretum

Much like no. 2 [Sedum telephioides Michx.] in aspect; pet white with green midnerve; nectaries yellow; stamens 0-10; carpels 0-5, pink, infertile. Sterile triploid (3x=36) from Japan, perhaps originating as a hybrid of S. spectabile Boreau and S. viridescens Nakai, occasionally escaped from cult. in our range. (S. ءlboroseum)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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