Description

Shrub to 3m, with thick roots and often hanging branches. Twigs c.1.5mm in diameter, slender, densely covered with red-brown, stellate scales when young, glabrescent and a little rough in older parts; internodes 2–12cm. Leaves mostly 3–4 together in tight pseudowhorls. Blade 25–65 x 14–30mm, ovate or broadly elliptic; apex broadly acute, obtuse or rounded; margin entire, flat or weakly revolute; base rounded, to sub-cordate; equally sub-densely scaly on both sides. Scales small, deeply stellately divided and shortly dendroid, each on top of minute paler, often nearly white tubercles beneath, the tubercles less distinct on the upper surface, quickly glabrescent above, more slowly beneath. Mid-vein weakly impressed above, strongly prominent beneath; lateral veins 5–7 per side, straight, anastomosing near the edge, slightly impressed above, somewhat raised beneath, reticulation lax, visible above, smooth to distinctly raised or inconspicuous beneath. Petiole 2–5 x 2–3mm, grooved above, densely brown-scaly. Flower buds ovoid, to 14 x 8mm, predominantly green with all the bract tips appressed, with a few brown scales outside near the apices and along the midline of the bracts especially near the base of the bud. Bracts to 12 x 6mm, ovate to spathulate; outer smaller ones sub-subulate, upper ones mucronate. Bracteoles to 15 x 2mm, linear-spathulate, glabrous. Inflorescence 2–5-flowered, in open one-sided umbels, the flowers semi-erect to half-hanging. Pedicels 7–15 x 1.5–2mm, pale green but densely brown-scaly. Calyx to 5mm in diameter, a low circular disc, or very shortly obtusely 5-toothed. Corolla 25–35 x 25–35mm, tubular, zygomorphic, deep pink; tube 25–30 x 7–8 x 10–13mm, curved, laxly to sub-densely, stellately scaly outside, glabrous inside; lobes 12–15 x 10–15mm, broadly spathulate to sub-circular, mostly emarginate, often with scales on the central basal areas outside. Stamens clustered on the upper side of the corolla, exserted c.8mm; filaments red, narrowly linear, glabrous or with some scattered hairs; anthers c.1.6 x 1mm, brown or dark purple. Disc glabrous. Ovary 5–6 x 2–3mm, elongate-conical, densely brown-stellate-scaly, gradually tapering distally; style held on the upper side of the corolla tube, pink, stellate scaly almost to the top; stigma broadly club-shaped, becoming exserted to c.6mm, positioned on the upper side of the tube. Fruit 30–40 x 4–6mm, fusiform, often curved, densely brown stellately scaly. Seeds 8mm, without tails c.1mm, the longest tail 4mm.

Distribution

Papua New Guinea, Madang to Milne Bay Districts.

Altitude

Habitat

Terrestrial on rocks or exposed cliff faces, epiphytic on big branches of high trees or growing on fallen trunks in mossy forest. Sometimes common.

Nomenclatural History

Notes

References

Argent, G. (2006) Rhododendrons of subgenus Vireya. RHS:London. Page:90