Description from Flora of China
Herbs perennial. Rootstock thick. Stems arising from rootstock or persistent basal part of flowering stems, simple, glabrous, rarely pubescent. Leaves alternate or opposite, petiolate or sessile; leaf blade flat, margin serrate or crenate. Inflorescences terminal, cymose with 3 main branches, bractless, many flowered. Flowers sessile or nearly so, bisexual, mostly 5-merous. Sepals basally connate, fleshy, spurless. Petals spreading at anthesis, nearly free, bright yellow. Stamens 2 × as many as petals, in 2 series. Nectar scales entire or apex emarginate. Ovaries and follicles with adaxial outgrowth. Styles short, oblique or spreading at flowering. Follicles many seeded. Seeds striate.
A record of Phedimus stevenianus (Rouy & E. G. Camus) 't Hart (Sedum stevenianum Rouy & E. G. Camus, based on S. roseum Steven (1812), not (Linnaeus) Scopoli (1771)) from China by H. Léveillé (Cat. Pl. Yun-Nan, 62. 1916, as S. hametianum H. Léveillé, also based on S. roseum Steven) is based on a misidentification. True P. stevenianus occurs in the Caucasus region and has never been collected in China.
About 20 species: Asia, Europe; eight species (two endemic) in China.