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Sedum clavatum (Tiscalatengo Gorge Sedum) - An attractive succulent that grows to 4 inches tall with stout creeping stems terminating in 2-inch-wide rosettes of glaucus blue-green succulent leaves and has a compact inflorescence of many white star-shaped flowers in mid to late spring (April - May in Santa Barbara) to early summer that take a pink hue with age. The stems lose their leaves as they elongate but are often covered by younger stems so the plant can look like a solid mat of attractive succulent gray colored rosettes.
Plant in full coastal sun or part sun in a well-drained soil and irrigate occasionally. Though often noted as frost tender we had our plant go undamaged through 3 nights at 25° F in our January 2007 cold spell - perhaps not hardy much below this though we have been told it also does well in the Pacific Northwest. Great in the ground if soil is well-drained, especially trained over or around a rock, in a container planting or hanging basket. Ray Stephenson notes in his book Sedum; Cultivated Stonecrops (Timber Press, 1994) that "This is a very elegant, stately species for hanging baskets."
Sedum clavatum was first discovered in 1959 growing along the cliffs on Tiscalatengo Gorge, an area in the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt near Villa Guerrero in the state of Mexico by Robert Clausen, Cornel Professor of Botany and author of Sedum of North America North of the Mexican Plateau. It first circulated in the succulent trades as an unnamed species and was later described by Clausen as Sedum clavatum in 1975 and was introduced by this name as an International Succulent Introduction in 1979 (ISI#1161) from cuttings taken from the Huntington Botanic Garden's collection (HBG#23982) that had been collected by Jorge Meyrán at the type locality. The specific epithet comes from the Latin word 'clava' meaning "club" for the baseball shape of the sepals.
Sedum clavatum is a plant in the Pachysedum group of the genus, one of 22 subdivisions within the genus Sedum that the German botanist Alwin Berger created and that American botanist Robert Clausen expanded upon. This group includes more than 90 closely related tender succulent species from North America that appear to be more closely related to Echeveria, Pachyphytum and Graptopetalum than to plants in other sections in Sedum. Unlike these other Sedum that produce terminal inflorescences on the stem, plants in this group have lateral inflorescences.
The information about Sedum clavatum that is displayed on this web page is based on research conducted in our nursery's horticultural library and from reliable online resources. We will also include observations made about this plant as it grows in our nursery gardens and other gardens that we have visited, as well how the crops have performed in containers in our nursery field. We also incorporate comments that we receive from others and welcome hearing from anyone with additional information, particularly if they share cultural information that aids others growing this plant.
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