Rhododendron kiusianum var. sataense

Description with 15 photos. Foto: Finn Bertelsen. A small-leaved, evergreen and rather compact shrub, fully hardy, but sensitive to lack of humidity. Branchlets and petioles densely covered by ligulate, appressed hairs with rugged tips. Petiole to 4 mm. Leaf blade elliptic to ovate, to 3 cm. Leaf apex rounded to obtuse, with mucro. Leaf base cuneate to acute. Leaf adaxial side, dark green, shiny, strigose with scattered bristles. Leaf abaxial side, light green, strigose with scattered bristles. Inflorescence with 1-4 flowers. Calyx with lingulate, spreading lobes. Lobes setose on the outsides and on the upper part of the insides. Corolla with 5 lobes, openly funnel-shaped, rose, pink, whitish, spotted or not. Ovary densely strigose by ligulate setae. Stamens, 5 (6), proximally finely pubescent. Style glabrous with swollen, greenish to reddish coloured, upwards bent stigma. Stamens and style protruding from the mouth of corolla. Capsule strigose. Native habitat: limited distribution on Kyushu (Mt. Sata), Japan according to F. Doleshy 1971, Jour. Am. Rho. Soc., Vol 25,1. The taxonomy of this variety is uncertain, as discussed by Doleshy and it may be considered a variety of Rh. kaempferi. From var. kiusianum the actual specimens differ by having longer, slightly narrower leaves and more flowers – up to 4 – in the inflorescences . The sataense calyx lobes are long and lingulate in contrast to the rounded lobes of var. kiusianum. The sataense corolla may be spotted.