Star Shaped Yellow Golden Flowers

During the months May through to July, you will see the lovely star shaped golden yellow flowers which are 12 to 15mm across being held in sprays above the foliage. These wildflowers have 5 petals which are tapered and sharp tipped, 5 sepals and 10 stamens. The plant only reaches to a height of 10cm, however as the plant spreads so much, this is where it's display is quite spectacular.

Leaves and Stems

The leaves are small, flesh, bright green and often a fleshy red. They are at their broadest at the base and are blunt pointef, they form a "mat" of creeping groundcover and grow to about 10cm. The leaves are bulbous,and are covered in lumps.

Follicles Open in the Rain
For a plant that gros in dry rocky places you will be surprised to know perhaps that the biting stonecrop’s follicles open only in the rain and the seeds spread with raindrops and running water far from the parent plant


Many Common Names for these lovely yellow wildflowers
This plant is also sometimes commonly called Goldmoss, Sedum Stonecrop, Wall-pepper, Wallpepper, Goldmoss Stonecrop. The leaves taste like pepper, whence the name comes from "biting" stonecrop.

Poisonous
The biting stonecrop has a bitter-tasting fluid in its leaves (acris, Lat. acrid) and is said to be poisonous and may cause skin rashes

Food for the Moths and Butterflies
Many butterflies and moths feed off these wild flowers, the plant is a particular favourite of several types of moths.

Poetry - William Wordsworth
The great poet Wordsworth mention the yellow stonecrop in one of the verses in "The Excursion"
The honeysuckle, crowding round the porch,
Hung down in heavier tufts, and that bright weed,
The yellow stonecrop, suffered to take root,
Along the window's edge, profusely grew,
Blinding the lower panes.'

Folklore
There are many tales surrounding this pretty yellow star shaped wildflower. It is said that it uUsed to be planted on roofs as a means of warding off evil spirits, witches and lightning.