Reinwardtia 1960. 5: 85.
WFO ID: wfo-0000400319
IPNI ID: urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:333004-1
Verified by:
Shrub to 1m. Twigs semi-rounded, the tips densely brown stellate-scaly, the older parts glabrescent and rough with minute tubercles; internodes 10–20cm. Leaves laxly spiral. Blade 60–100 x 30–40mm, broadly elliptic; apex shortly acuminate, sub-acute or sub-obtuse; margin slightly wavy or revolute; base very broadly tapering to rounded; when young densely brown-scaly above and beneath, mature blades glabrescent except along the mid-vein, densely, minutely tubercled and very rough to the touch. Scales minute, deeply stellately divided, shortly dendroid, each on top of a minute pale persistent epidermal tubercle. Mid-vein thick, flattened, a little raised and impressed in the lower part above, prominent beneath; lateral veins c.10 per side, dense, irregular, straight below, anastomosing near the margin, slightly prominent on both sides, veins laxly prominently reticulate, finer reticulation obscure. Petiole c.10 x 2.5mm, flattened, at first densely scaly, rough when the scales have gone. Bracts to 45 x 20mm; middle and inner bracts spathulate, densely white hairy both in and outside. Bracteoles to 30 x 2mm, linear, very densely whitish hairy, with partly appressed hairs. Inflorescence of 7–8 flowers in an open umbel. Pedicels 8–10 x c.1.5mm, densely appressed-hairy and laxly stellately scaly, with fragile scales. Calyx c.4mm in diameter, oblique, circular, obscurely 5–6-lobed, densely hairy and scaly outside. Corolla 90–100 x 40–50mm, elongate-tubular below, expanded above, fragrant, pink at the tube, shading to white at the lobes; tube 60–70 x 4–5 x c.8mm, cylindrical, glabrous outside, densely covered with long retrorse hairs almost to the mouth inside; lobes 25–30 x 18–25mm, broadly obovate to sub-circular, glabrous. Stamens exserted to c.10mm; filaments linear and densely covered with retrorse hairs below, more laxly hairy distally, filiform and glabrous in the ultimate ¼; anthers c.6 x 1.2mm, elongate-oblong, the base obtuse. Disc white hairy. Ovary 10–12 x c.2.5mm, elongate-cylindrical, very densely stellately scaly and laxly short-hairy (the hairs mostly hidden by the scales), gradually tapering distally; style 50–60mm, thick below, very densely stellately scaly and without hairs in the proximal 30–40mm, more slender and completely glabrous distally; stigma large, globose, distinctly 5-lobed.
Indonesia, New Guinea (W), Bernhard Camp, Idenburg R. and Snow Mountains region E of the Baliem Valley
A frequent epiphyte on large trees in mossy forest
Argent, G. (2006) Rhododendrons of subgenus Vireya. RHS:London. Page:92