Herbs, perennial, cespitose, glabrous. Stems creeping, much-branched, forming terminal rosettes on branches (primary rosettes usually 1-2.7 cm diam.). Leaves alternate, spreading to ascending, petiolate; blade pale green or blue-green, usually glaucous, oblanceolate to spatulate, laminar, (6-)10-18 × 1-4.5 mm, base petiolelike, with simple, short spur, not scarious, apex obtuse, (surfaces papillose). Flowering shoots erect, simple, 3.5-17.5 cm; leaf blades narrowly oblong to linear, base short-spurred; offsets not formed. Inflorescences cymes, 5-30-flowered, 3-branched; branches erect or only slightly recurved, sometimes forked; bracts similar to leaves, smaller. Pedicels absent. Flowers 4-merous; sepals divergent, distinct, green, linear-lanceolate, unequal, 3.6-6.3 × 0.9-1.6 mm, apex obtuse, (papillose); petals spreading, distinct, white, lanceolate, minutely hooded, 4-9 mm, apex acuminate; filaments white; anthers dark red to almost purple; nectar scales white, subquadrate. Carpels widely divergent in fruit, slightly connate basally, brown. 2n = 28, 44, 45-49.

Flowering late spring-mid summer. Usually shaded cliffs, crest of cliffs, rocky slopes, on limestone, shale, sandstone, granite, hornblende gabbro, schist, and gneiss rocks; 50-1200 m; Md., N.C., Va., W.Va.

Sedum glaucophyllum is known only from the central and southern Appalachian Mountains. According to A. S. Weakley (2007), reports from Georgia are based on confusion with S. nevii.