Both Sedum

Sedum acre vs Sedum album

These two are not on this page because a keyword tool suggested them. They are here because our own identification model genuinely mistook one for the other, on real photographs, 4 times. We publish the rate, and then we tell you what actually separates them.

Confused 4x by our model Same genus Sedum Method published

Side by sidefigs. a and b

Sedum acre, photographed by Вячеслав Юсупов
fig. a Вячеслав Юсупов, CC BY 4.0

Sedum acre

Biting Stonecrop
Sedum album, photographed by Pete Bradshaw
fig. b Pete Bradshaw, CC BY 4.0

Sedum album

white stonecrop

How often our model gets it wrong measured, not estimated

When the plant was The model said How often
Sedum album Sedum acre 4 of 20 (20%)

Measured on 38,299 openly licensed, research-grade photographs. Full method and dataset.

What actually separates themon the record

Family Both Crassulaceae. The family does not separate them.
Genus Both Sedum. Congeners, which is why this is hard.
Flowering Peaks in June versus July. If the plant is in flower, timing helps. (n = 2,699 and 1,380.)

What we do not have yet: the diagnostic morphological character that a botanist would key on, from a source we can cite. We are not going to invent one. Until we have it, this page tells you the two are genuinely confusable, how often, and what the taxonomy and the flowering data do and do not settle.

Both recordsfull pages