Notes RBG Edinb. 1978. 37(1): 57.
Verified by:
Shrub to 80cm. Twigs smooth, green or reddish, very finely hairy and laxly scaly. Leaves 5–8 in tight pseudowhorls, with a variable number of smaller reduced scale leaves. Blade 18–28 x 9–12mm, obovate; apex broadly pointed to rounded; margin entire, slightly recurved; base tapering; laxly scaly above and with a few simple hairs but quickly glabrescent; below laxly and more persistently scaly but without hairs. Scales stellate, flat, with a broad marginal flange and small slightly impressed centre. Mid-vein impressed above, raised below; lateral veins 2–3 per side, faint or obscure. Petiole 4–5 x 1–2mm, hairy and scaly, weakly grooved at the junction with the lamina, green. Flower buds to 8 x 4mm, ellipsoidal, green, tips of the bracts stiffly erect, hairy outside and with marginal brown scales. Inflorescences often lateral as well as terminal, of 1–2 occasionally up to 4 flowers, hanging vertically. Pedicels 17 x 1mm, red, with long, white, spreading hairs. Calyx a low green disc with a hairy margin. Corolla 23 x 26mm, bright-red, without scent; tube c.17 x 8 x 6mm, swollen just above the base and then narrowed slightly, becoming parallel sided and straight, long-hairy and with a few scales outside, hairy only near the base inside; lobes 10 x 6mm, wide-spreading, not overlapping. Stamens spreading all round the mouth of the flower; filaments 18mm, white, passing to pink distally, broadened and hairy in the proximal 4mm; anthers 1.4 x 0.8mm, brown. Ovary c.4 x 3mm, shortly cylindrical, densely hairy, with white semi-appressed hairs and brown scales covered by the hairs; style 5 x 0.5mm, green with a few hairs near the base only; stigma green, 1mm in diameter. Fruit 16 x 5mm, cylindrical, white-hairy and with brown scales, the valves spreading widely after opening. Seeds 3.3mm, without tails 1mm, the longest tail 1.2mm.
Malaysia (Borneo), Sarawak, Mt Murud, Mt Lawi. Sabah, Mt Lotung, Crocker Range and in the area of the River Rekong Waterfall near Long Pasia. Erroneously reported from Kinabalu although it could easily be on that mountain.
Epiphytic in mossy sub-montane forest.
Argent, G. (2006) Rhododendrons of subgenus Vireya. RHS:London. Page:200