English: White Stonecrop; Small Houseleek.
Region: Eurasia, Norway to Portugal, Ukraine, Caucasus, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon and Syria; N. Africa, Morocco to Libya; naturaliized in Britain.
Habitat: rocks, walls, cobbled paths; dry sunny situations; acid or calcareous soils; moderately cold-hardy plant, tolerating temperatures to -20°c; requires a sunny position, tolerating only very light shade; very easily grown plant; succeeds in most soils, prefers a fertile well-drained soil; drought tolerant; dry soils and succeed on a wall.
Content: alkaloids, sedine, sedamine.
Ecology: often specially targeted by slugs; immune to the predations of rabbits.
Use: food, leaves, raw or cooked, as a pickle; medicine; green roofing systems; ornamental, ground cover.
BotanyHerb; evergreen; perennial; 10 cm tall; spread rapidly and aggressively at the roots.
Root: fibrous; creeping rhizome.
Stem: mats of prostrate short, sterile shoots; 2 to 3 cm long.
Inflorescence: erect blooming stems; 8 to 30 cm tall.
Flowers: white.
Pollination: by bees, flies, self.