Description

Shrub or small tree, 1.3-3.5m; young shoots tomentose and stipitate-glandular, soon glabrescent. Leaves oblanceolate to elliptic, 10-16 x 3-5cm, 3.3-4 x as long as broad, apex acute to shortly and bluntly cuspidate, base cuneate, upper surface glabrous when mature, lower surface with a thin fug-aceous indumentum that is embedded in a thin surface film and usually persists towards the base of the leaf, especially near the midrib; petioles 2-3cm, usually sparsely tomentose, even when mature. Inflorescence 14-25-flowered; rhachis 10-30mm; pedicels sparsely stipitate-glandular, 20-30mm in flower, up to 60mm in fruit. Calyx 3-5mm, stipitate-glandular, lobes rounded. Corolla campanulate, white to rose-purple, with yellowish-green flecks, 25-30mm. Ovary stipitate-glandular and pilose; style glabrous. Capsule 17-20 x 4-6mm.

Distribution

Eastern USA & CANADA(from Nova Scotia to N Georgia)

Altitude

Habitat

Upland woods

Nomenclatural History

R. procerum Salisbury, Prodr. 287 (1796), superfluous name. R. maximum L. var. purpureum Pursh & var. album Pursh, Fl. Amer. Sept. 1:297(1814). 1R. latifolium Hoffmannsegg, Verz. Pfl.-Kult. Nachtr. 2: 195 (1826). R. purpureum (Pursh) G. Don, Gen. Syst. 3: 843 (1834). R. purshii G. Don, ibid. 3: 843 (1834). Type: USA, Cedar swamps in New Jersey and Delaware, n.v. R. ashleyi Coker, J. Elisha Mitchell Sci. Soc. 51: 189, t.53, 54 (1935). Type: USA, N Carolina, Ashe Co., 2 miles from Lansing, 19 vi 1935, Ashley, n.v.

Notes

References

Chamberlain, D.F. (1982) A Revision of Rhododendron II. Subgenus Hymenanthes. Notes From the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh 39(2):316