9. R. aúreum, Pursh. (Missouri or Buffalo Currant.) Shrub 5–12° high; leaves 3–5-lobed, rarely at all cordate; racemes short; flowers golden-yellow, spicy-fragrant; tube of salverform calyx (6´´ long or less) 3 or 4 times longer than the oval lobes; stamens short; berries yellow or black.—Banks of streams, Mo. and Ark. to the Rocky Mts., and westward. Common in cultivation.
Order 36. CRASSULÀCEÆ. (Orpine Family.)
Succulent herbs, with perfectly symmetrical flowers; viz., the petals and pistils equalling the sepals in number (3–20), and the stamens the same or double their number,—technically different from Saxifrageæ only in this complete symmetry, and in the carpels (in most of the genera) being quite distinct from each other. Also, instead of a perigynous disk, there are usually little scales on the receptacle, one behind each carpel. Fruit dry and dehiscent; the pods (follicles) opening down the ventral suture, many-rarely few-seeded.—Stipules none. Flowers usually cymose, small. Leaves mostly sessile, in Penthorum not at all fleshy.
[*] Not succulent; the carpels united, forming a 5-celled capsule.
1. Penthorum. Sepals 5. Petals none. Stamens 10. Pod 5-beaked, many-seeded.
[*][*] Leaves, etc., thick and succulent. Carpels distinct.
2. Tillæa. Sepals, petals, stamens, and pistils 3 or 4. Seeds few or many.
3. Sedum. Sepals, petals, and pistils 4 or 5. Stamens 8–10. Seeds many.
1. PÉNTHORUM, Gronov. Ditch Stone-crop.
Sepals 5. Petals rare, if any. Stamens 10. Pistils 5, united below, forming a 5-angled, 5-horned, and 5-celled capsule, which opens by the falling off of the beaks, many-seeded.—Upright weed-like perennials (not fleshy like the rest of the family), with scattered leaves, and yellowish-green flowers loosely spiked along the upper side of the naked branches of the cyme. (Name from πέντε, five, and ὅρος, a mark, from the quinary order of the flower.)