Rhododendron bureavii

Description with 28 photos. Photo: Finn Bertelsen. A rather dense, globular, evergreen shrub. Fully hardy. Young shoots stout, redbrown, covered by a woolly tomentum. Petiole, tomentose with a mixture of ramiform hairs and stipitate, brown, glandular hairs, redbrown, to 30 x 8 mm. Leaf blade elliptic, coriaceous, to 15 x 6 cm. Leaf apex acuminate to acute, with mucro. Leaf base rounded to obtuse. Leaf adaxial side dark green, at first with remains of tomentum, later shiny and glabrous. Leaf abaxial side covered by a woolly, beige to cinnamon brown, uni-strate indumentum of ramiform hairs, being intermixed with stipitate, brown glandular hairs over the midrib. Inflorescence with 8 – 10 flowers (first year of flowering). Rachis short (< 10 mm), densely tomentose as petiole. Pedicel tomentose, to 25 mm. Calyx with 5 lobes, glandular hairy. Calyx lobes unequal in length, lingulate, to 12 mm. Corolla with 5 lobes, tubular-campanulate, white with internal crimson dots and external pink tinge, c. 40 mm deep. Ovary conical, channelled, densely covered by a mixture of colourless, ramiform hairs and stipitate glands, with 8 loculi, c. 5 mm. Stamens 10-12, unequal. Filaments pubescent towards base, white. Style, at base hairy-glandular hairy, otherwise glabrous, protruding from the corolla funnel, with upwards bent stigma, yellow-green, splitted into eight parts, 2.3 mm. Capsule ovoid, tomentose, to 20 mm. Native habitat: W. Sichuan and N. Yunnan, China, at 2800 – 4500 m according to Flora of China efloras org.