These have thick stems, branching each year, eventually giving an unusual structure, clothed with many fleshy leaves. The tips of the new stems are crowded with small, long-lasting flowers, yellow, orange or red, the colour remaining until the autumn. They have proved to be perfectly hardy for many years in our garden in Scotland.

Rhodiola CC5344 is from mountain slopes in the western Himalaya, with stony patches interspersed with thin grass, at 4300 m. It makes a clump of branches, lined with thin, fleshy leaves, which turn bright red in autumn. At the tip of each branch is a dense cluster of small flowers, orangey red.