Broadleaf stonecrop is a succulent, glabrous and often glaucous herbaceous perennial with slender rootstocks and sterile stems growing 2" to 6" tall and propagating by the lateral offshoots.  This plant has two kinds of stems, sterile stems which produce only rosettes of leaves, and fertile stems which produce flowers.  There are basal rosettes of green, minutely crenulate and broadly spatulate leaves, 3/16" to 1-1/4" long, at the ends of the sterile stems, while the leaves on the flowering stems are alternate.  The flowers are in simple to compound terminal cymes which are 5-48-flowered.  The 5 sepals are lanceolate to lance-ovate, and the 5 yellow, rarely orange to whitish, petals are narrowly lanceolate, acute-tipped, and ± erect to widely spreading.  The anthers are yellow to red-brown.  Broadleaf stonecrop inhabits rocky outcroppings and north and east facing cliffs, often in somewhat shaded places, to about 7500', from the San Bernardino and San Gabriel Mountains to central California, blooming from June to July.  These pictures were taken in the San Gabriels.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Sedum 2) spathulifolium.
Pronunciation: SEE-dum spa-thyoo-li-FO-lee-um.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.