Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Herbs, usually succulent, varying from minute annuals to soft-wooded perennial shrubs; leaves opposite or alternate, without petioles or stipules.

Inflorescence a thyrse with several rarely only 1 dichasium with the end-branches often reduced to monochasia, rarely the whole inflorescence a monochasium; flowers with whorls of usually 5 rarely 3-12 floral parts; sepals more or less connate, persistent; petals more or less connate, spreading and star-shaped to distinctly tubular; stamens in 1 or 2 whorls, with filaments fused at least to the base of the corolla tube; anthers 2-celled, usually opening inwards; nectary scale on the outer base of each carpel; carpels as many as petals, free or rarely slightly fused at the base, with each carpel gradually tapering into the style with a terminal stigma; ovary with 1 to many ovules.

Fruit a follicle splitting more or less completely along the whole inner suture; seeds with vertical ridges or rows of tubercles on a membranous testa enclosing the straight embryo.

Distribution:  Between 30 and 35 genera and about 1,500 species are recognised at present; cosmopolitan but poorly represented in South America and Australia to South-East Asia. Among the many perennials cultivated many plants persist for some time near old homesteads or near dumps, particularly plants with alternate leaves such as Bryophyllum (Kalanchoe) (life-leaf, with vegetative buds on the leaves) or Echeveria (white to red flowers usually with 5-merous bell-shaped flowers) are often encountered. (These plants have not been found naturalised anywhere in this State.)

Biology: No text

Key to Genera:

1. Leaves connate at the nodes; stamens as many as petals	CRASSULA 3.
1. Leaves free; stamens twice as many as petals
2. Leaves opposite; petals connate for at least 8 mm	COTYLEDON 2.
2. Leaves alternate; petals connate for up to 3 mm
3. Leaves borne in a terminal rosette; flowers 8-12-merous	AEONIUM 1.
3. Leaves loosely spaced towards the ends of branches; flowers 5-7- rarely 8-merous	SEDUM 4.

Author: Prepared by H. R. Toelken