Rhododendron crinigerum var. crinigerum

Description with 21 photos. Photo: Finn Bertelsen. Evergreen shrub. Hardy. Young shoots with scattered glands. Petiole tomentose and glandular hairy, to 20 mm. Leaf blade lanceolate to oblanceolate, coriaceous, to 18.0 X 4.6 cm. Margin revolute on young leaves. Leaf apex acuminate, without mucro. Leaf base obtuse. Leaf adaxial side rugose, at first clad with a thin brown tomentum of dendroid hairs and brown glands, later glabrous, shiny, dark green. Leaf abaxial side with light olive-brown, felty, unistrate indumentum of dense dendroid hairs. Midrib hairy and glandular as the petiole. Flower bud-scales with pointed, narrow, elongated midribs. Inflorescence an umbel-like raceme with 10+ flowers. Rachis c. 15 mm. Pedicel densely stipitate glandular, c. 20 mm. Calyx with 5 lobes, asymmetrical. Lobes in part red-coloured, ciliate and densely glandular hairy, to 10 mm. Corolla with 5 lobes, campanulate, white,  wine-red spotted and external, basic flush, c. 30 mm and c. 30 mm deep (long). Ovary conical, densely glandular, 3-4 mm. Stamens 10, unequal in length, pubescent at base, 1/3 to 2/3 the length of style. Style straight, glandular at base, to 25 mm, with upwards bent, green, disc-shaped stigma < 2 mm. Capsule glandular, with persistent calyx. Seeds not available – so far. Locality of origin: unknown. Seed No. ARS cw. 2013-550 JN 12145. Native habitat: NW Sichuan, NW Yunnan, SE Xizang, China at 2200-4200 m. as well as in Arunachal Pradesh, India. Remarks: var. crinigerum has sparse abaxial glands in contradiction to var. euadenium.