Common Name: STONECROP FAMILY
Habit: Annual to shrub [+- tree-like or climbing], fleshy. Leaf: generally simple, alternate or opposite (whorled), in dense to open, basal (or terminal) rosettes, or basal and cauline (not in rosettes), reduced on distal stem or not, often +- red. Inflorescence: generally a cyme, panicle-like, generally bracted. Flower: generally bisexual; sepals generally 3--5, generally +- free; petals generally 3--5, +- free or fused; stamens >> to = sepals, epipetalous or not; pistils generally 3--5(8), simple, fused at base or not, ovary 1-chambered, placenta 1, parietal, ovules 1--many, style 1 per pistil. Fruit: follicles, generally 3--5. Seed: 1--many, small.
Genera In Family: +- 33 genera, +- 1400 species: +- worldwide, especially dry temperate; many cultivated for ornament. Note: Water-stressed plants often +- red. Consistent terminology regarding leaves, bracts difficult; in Aeonium and Dudleya, structures in rosettes are leaves, those on peduncles are bracts, and those subtending flowers are flower bracts; thus in taxa where the inflorescence is terminal, rosette leaves may "become" bracts as stem rapidly elongates to form an inflorescence. In Sedum structures below the inflorescence are interpreted as stems and leaves, not peduncles and bracts. Seed numbers given per follicle. SCIED: Scientific Editor: Bruce G. Baldwin, Thomas J. Rosatti.
eFlora Treatment Author: Steve Boyd, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Bruce G. Baldwin, Thomas J. Rosatti.