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Sedum lucidum (Siempreviva) - A compact growing succulent subshrub to about 8 inches tall by 2 feet wide with 12- to 14-inch-long stems that are at first erect but lay down as they elongate. These stems mostly retain along their length the inch long fleshy, ovoid and smooth, dark green oblong-elliptic leaves with acute tips that are alternate and stalkless along the stems and clustered into a tight rosette at the stem tips. Leaves remain a lustrous green when grown in shade but take on pink to red tints along the margins when grown out in full sun. From late fall into early spring appear the densely clustered axillary compound cymes of small white flowers with yellow centers that are lightly musky scented.
Plant in a shaded location or full sun in a well-drained soil and water sparingly to occasionally. It is hardy to 20 °F and grown outdoors in USDA hardiness zone 9a to 11b. This plant makes a nice and attractive small-scale dense ground-cover to a couple feet wide in well-drained soil and is great scrambling over and around rocks. It also makes a nice container plant or in a hanging basket.
Sedum lucidum was first described by Robert T. Clausen in the July-August 1951 issue of the Cactus and Succulent Society of America's Cactus and Succulent Journal (Vol.23 N.4) from plants collected by Eric Walther in 1935 on a steep rocky hillside at Cerro Borrego near the city of Orizaba in the state of Vera Cruz, Mexico. Clausen himself visited the area in 1955 and found the plants at this location growing on limestone cliffs and epiphytically on oak trees and he also found it nearby at Rio Blanco southwest of Oirizaba. The name Sedum is derived from the Latin word 'sedere' meaning to "to sit" in reference to the low-growing habit and the manner in which some species attach themselves to stones or walls and the specific epithet is the Latin word meaning "shining' in reference to the lustrous surface of the leaves. It 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.
Our first stock plants came to us with the succulent collection of Alice Waidhofer of Stockton, California in 2004, who had received it from the Huntington Botanic Garden as a International Succulent Introduction the year prior as ISI 2003-37 Sedum lucidum. This ISI 2003-37 plant was a re-introduction of their 1984 ISI 1497, a plant accessioned by the Huntington as HBG 41304 that was originally collected by Alfred Bernhard Lau in 1971 in Veracruz, Mexico.
The information about Sedum lucidum 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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