Description

Slender shrub. Twigs c.1mm in diameter, rounded, laxly to sub-densely covered with flat appressed scales, without hairs, older parts glabrescent and smooth; internodes 2–6cm. Leaves 5–7 together in pseudowhorls. Blade 25–45 x 5–12mm, narrowly elliptic; apex rounded or obtuse; margin narrowly but distinctly revolute; base tapering and slightly decurrent, when young, sub-densely scaly on both sides; at maturity glabrescent and blackish spotted; minutely rugose above; sub-densely persistently scaly beneath. Scales irregularly crenate, lobed in the marginal brown zone; centre darker and slightly impressed. Mid-vein markedly impressed above, thick and very prominent beneath; lateral veins inconspicuous. Petiole 2–4 x c.1mm, flattened, densely scaly. Bracts to 8 x 4mm, ovate-elliptic, membranous, glabrous outside, shiny, margin with fragile scales. Bracteoles c.6mm, linear-filiform, glabrous. Flowers solitary or in twos. Pedicels 10–15mm, slender, densely stellate-scaly, without hairs. Calyx c.2.5mm in diameter, disc-shaped, oblique, obscurely sub-acutely 5-lobed, densely scaly outside. Corolla 15–18mm, campanulate, thin, red, 5-lobed halfway; tube 6–9 x c.4 x 15–20mm, sub-densely to laxly scaly outside, glabrous inside; lobes 6–8 x 6–8mm, broadly obovate-spathulate, slightly spreading. Stamens exserted to c.5mm, unequal; filaments linear, slightly dilated at the base, becoming filiform distally, glabrous; anthers c.1.8 x 1mm, ellipsoid. Disc prominent, glabrous. Ovary c.3 x 1.5mm, ovoid-conical, densely stellate-scaly, abruptly contracted distally; style c.8mm, slender, glabrous; stigma obconical, deeply 5-lobed.

Rhododendron pyrrhophorum Sleumer

Description

Distribution

Altitude

Habitat

Nomenclatural History

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References