Description

Small shrub to 0.5 m. Leaf-bud scales deciduous. Leaves oblong-elliptic to oblong-ovate, 10-20 x 5-10 mm, somewhat revolute, tapered to rounded at the base, tapered to the obtuse apex, above dark glossy green, elepidote, somewhat rugose, beneath pale yellowish with dense, overlapping, ± plastered scales. Inflorescence 7-15-flowered, pedicels lepidote. Calyx lobes 1-3 mm, ovate, obtuse, fringed with dense loriform cilia. Corolla pale pink to pink, lobes usually with prominent darker veins, tube 6.5-8.5 mm, glabrous and elepidote outside, villous-pilose within, the lobes 4-5-6 mm, pilose within for some distance from the throat of the tube. Stamens 5(-6). Ovary lepidote. Capsule lepidote, 3-6 mm. USSR (Siberia: Angara-Sayan, Dauria, River Lena area, Okhotsk), MONGOLIA. Forming thickets in the alpine zone. (Cf. Busch, Fl. Sib. et Or. Ext. fasc. 2:21 for a distribution map of this species under the name R. anthopogon)

Distribution

Altitude

Habitat

Nomenclatural History

Azalea fragrans Adams, Mem. Soc. Mosc. 5:92 (1808). Osmothamnus fragrans (Adams) De Candolle, Prodr. 7:715 (1839). O. pallidus [Turczaninow ex] De Candolle, loc. cit. Type: USSR, in rupibus Alpium Baicalensium, Turczaninow. R. adamsii Rehder, Publ. Arn. Arb. 9:190 (1921). Type: as for R. fragrans.

Notes

References

Cullen, J. (1980) A Revision of Rhododendron 1: Subgenus Rhododendron sections Rhododendron & Pogonanthum. Notes from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 39(1):167