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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: COR-CRE |
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CRASSULACEAE , in botany, a natural order of dicotyledons, containing 13 genera and nearly 500 species; of cosmopolitan distribution, but most strongly developed in South Africa. The plants are herbs or small shrubs, generally with thick fleshy stems and leaves, adapted for life in dry, especially rocky places. The fleshy leaves are often reduced to a more or less cylindrical structure, as in the stonecrops (Sedum), or form closely crowded rosettes as in the house
tissue is succulent, forming a water-store , which is protected from loss by evaporation by a thickly cuticularized epidermis covered with a waxy secretion which gives a glaucous appearance to the plant. The flowers
series . This number is, however, very variable, and often notStonecrop (Sedum acre) slightly reduced. 1, Horizontal
constant in one and the same species. The sepals and petals are free or more or less united, the stamens as many or twice as many as the petals; the carpels, usually free, are equal to the petals in number, and form in the fruit follicles with two or more seeds. Opposite each carpel is a small scale which functions as a nectary. Means of vegetative propagation are general. Many species spread by means of a creeping much-branched rootstock, or as in house
The order is almost absent from Australia and Polynesia, and has but few representatives in South America; it is otherwise very generally distributed. The largest genus, Sedum, contains about 140 species in the temperate and colder parts of the northern hemisphere; eight occur wild in Britain, including S. Telephium (orpine) and S. acre (common stonecrop) (see fig.). The species are easily cultivated and will thrive in almost any soil. They are readily propagated by seeds, cuttings or divisions. Crassula has about loo species, chiefly at the Cape. Cotyledon, a widely distributed genus with about 90 species, is represented in the British Isles by C. Umbilicus, pennywort, or navelwort, which takes its name from the succulent peltate leaves. It grows profusely on dry rocks and walls, especially on the western coasts, and bears a spike of drooping greenish cup-shaped flowers
hardy
The order is closely allied to Saxifragaceae
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