Stems 2-4(-6) dm × 3-10 mm, from short rootstocks with pale brown, stout roots. Leaves opposite or mostly alternate, sessile or short-petiolate, becoming scarcely smaller distally; blade green or yellow-green, often glaucous, ovate to obovate, oblanceolate, or spatulate, 2-11 × 0.5-4.5 cm, base cuneate, margins entire to remotely or coarsely dentate, apex acute to rounded. Cymes lax, 3-15 cm diam. Pedicels ca. 2 mm. Flowers fertile, 5-16 mm diam.; sepals lanceolate, 2-4 mm; petals white or pink-tinged to pinkish, with greenish keel, 4-8 mm; stamens 5, ca. 1/2 as long as petals; pistils 5, 3-4 mm; styles 1.5-2 mm; nectaries pinkish, quadrate, 0.5-1 mm, wider than long. 2n = 24.

Flowering summer. On rocks, ledges and crevices of cliffs, rocky slopes, crests of bluffs, rocky woods; 50-2000 m; Ont.; Ill., Ind., Ky., Md., Mich., Minn., N.C., Ohio, Pa., S.C., Va., W.Va.

Hylotelephium telephioides is a rare escape from cultivation, where it is not native in the flora area. R. T. Clausen (1975) discredited reports of this plant for Georgia and New York.

We now have specimens of this species from three counties. Dr. Clapp found it "on the cliffs of the Ohio above Utica, Clark County. Sept. 22, 1837." He said he found it in only two localities. I saw his specimens in the herbaria of the New York Botanical Garden, Purdue University, and Wabash College. In 1922 I found it in Harrison County on a very narrow ledge of rock near the top of the cliff along the Ohio River, in section 14 about 4 miles southeast of Laconia. The cliff at this place is about 300 feet above the river. I have had it in cultivation since that time and the flowers are nearly white to faintly pink. In 1936 R. M. Tryon, Jr., found it in Perry County on the sandstone cliffs near Magnet.

Rather coarse-rooted perennial from a stout caudex, the stems tufted, 2-6 dm, simple to the infl; lvs alternate or opposite, ±elliptic, narrowed to the base, flat, 3-8 נ1.5-3.5 cm, entire or often coarsely few-toothed, sometimes glaucous, not much reduced upwards; infl broadly rounded, much-branched, not secund, 4-10 cm wide, the branchlets narrowly winged; fls mostly 5-merous; sep ca 2.5 mm; pet white to light pink, 4.5-6 mm; nectaries white or pale yellow, ca 1.4 times as long as wide; ovaries white, pale green, or pink; frs short-stipitate, erect with divergent beaks; 2n=24, seldom 48. Dry, rocky places in the mts. from s. Pa. to N.C.; disjunct in s. Ind. and Ill. and w. Ky., and rarely escaped elsewhere. Aug.-Oct.

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

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.