Description

Shrub to c.1m. Stems pale green, rounded, c.3mm in diameter, moderately densely covered in brown stellate scales. Leaves in loose pseudowhorls 3–8cm apart. Blade 40–75 x 17–30mm, narrowly obovate, occasionally elliptic; apex obtuse with a somewhat obscure, white, non-protruding, gland-like structure at the point; margin entire, flat or slightly and narrowly recurved; base tapering, often slightly decurrent. Mid-vein narrowly impressed above, distinctly prominent in the proximal ½–2⁄3 beneath, pink especially towards the base; lateral veins smooth, indistinct, 5–8 per side, the basal arising at an acute angle, the upper ones wide-spreading, all disappearing before the edge of the leaf: at first scaly with silvery or brown scales above but quickly glabrescent; below persistently brown scaly. Scales rounded to weakly lobed with darker centres which are often as broad in diameter as the flanges, distributed 1–2 diameters apart in the mature leaves. Petiole 4–7 x 2–3mm, faintly grooved above, pale green or pale pink with brown scales. Flower buds green, becoming almost white in the distal ½ just before opening, to 40 x 22mm, conical, but contracted near the base, acutely pointed, imbricate with the tips of the bracts reflexed. Bracts minutely hairy and with a few small, scattered brown scales outside and scales along the margins, inner bracts often shortly emarginate. Pedicels 18–22 x 2–3mm, green, laxly scaly but without simple hairs. Flowers 1 or 2 together, terminal, held more or less horizontally, white with a cream throat, very strongly and sweetly scented. Calyx a lobed disc, densely scaly below, less so near the perimeter. Corolla 52–60 x 102–105mm; tube 26–30 x c.15 x 17–24mm, glabrous outside but with retrorse white hairs in the proximal ½ inside; lobes c.46 x 35–46mm, spreading horizontally, overlapping to c.½ their length, with a rather irregular ‘frilled’ margin. Stamens clustered on the lower side of the flower, exserted 20–25mm from the mouth; filaments 38–43 x 0.2mm wide expanded suddenly for the basal 2.5mm to c.1.4mm wide, glabrous but densely white hairy in the basal expanded portion, white, slightly dimorphic; anthers c.7mm, brown, shortly but distinctly apiculate at the base. Disc green with dense short, white, erect hairs. Ovary c.6 x 5mm, broadly trapezoid in outline, densely silvery scaly and with sparse short patent hairs mostly towards the top; style c.50mm, cream, lying on the lower side of the corolla tube but curving upwards when the stigma becomes receptive, densely patent-hairy and sparsely scaly in the proximal 1⁄3, the scales arising on low papillae; stigma 4–7mm in diameter, white, crown-shaped, exserted up to 15mm beyond the anthers. Fruit 25 x 12mm, pale-green with a covering of dense brown scales, the outer skin only weakly separating from the valves which curve outwards on opening without twisting, the placentae separating from the central column. Seeds c.2.3mm, without tails 1mm, the longest tail 0.8mm.

Rhododendron mendumiae Argent

Description

Distribution

Altitude

Habitat

Nomenclatural History

Notes

References