Stems 2-4(-6) dm × 3-10 mm, from short rootstocks with pale brown, stout roots. Leaves opposite or mostly alternate, sessile or short-petiolate, becoming scarcely smaller distally; blade green or yellow-green, often glaucous, ovate to obovate, oblanceolate, or spatulate, 2-11 × 0.5-4.5 cm, base cuneate, margins entire to remotely or coarsely dentate, apex acute to rounded. Cymes lax, 3-15 cm diam. Pedicels ca. 2 mm. Flowers fertile, 5-16 mm diam.; sepals lanceolate, 2-4 mm; petals white or pink-tinged to pinkish, with greenish keel, 4-8 mm; stamens 5, ca. 1/2 as long as petals; pistils 5, 3-4 mm; styles 1.5-2 mm; nectaries pinkish, quadrate, 0.5-1 mm, wider than long. 2n = 24. Flowering summer. On rocks, ledges and crevices of cliffs, rocky slopes, crests of bluffs, rocky woods; 50-2000 m; Ont.; Ill., Ind., Ky., Md., Mich., Minn., N.C., Ohio, Pa., S.C., Va., W.Va. Hylotelephium telephioides is a rare escape from cultivation, where it is not native in the flora area. R. T. Clausen (1975) discredited reports of this plant for Georgia and New York.
Rather coarse-rooted perennial from a stout caudex, the stems tufted, 2-6 dm, simple to the infl; lvs alternate or opposite, ±elliptic, narrowed to the base, flat, 3-8 נ1.5-3.5 cm, entire or often coarsely few-toothed, sometimes glaucous, not much reduced upwards; infl broadly rounded, much-branched, not secund, 4-10 cm wide, the branchlets narrowly winged; fls mostly 5-merous; sep ca 2.5 mm; pet white to light pink, 4.5-6 mm; nectaries white or pale yellow, ca 1.4 times as long as wide; ovaries white, pale green, or pink; frs short-stipitate, erect with divergent beaks; 2n=24, seldom 48. Dry, rocky places in the mts. from s. Pa. to N.C.; disjunct in s. Ind. and Ill. and w. Ky., and rarely escaped elsewhere. Aug.-Oct.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.