Rhododendron griersonianum

Description with 26 photos. Photo: Finn Bertelsen. Upright, open, evergreen shrub. Sensitive to frost. Survived to – 5 gr. C. (USDA Z.8). Young shoots covered by whitish – later brownish, long-stipitate glandular and woolly hairs. Petiole long-stipitate glandular and woolly, dark purple, to 30 mm. Leaf blade narrow elliptical to lancet, with slightly revolute margins, to 23 x 6 cm (in greenhouse). Apex acute to acuminate, without mucro. Leaf base obtuse. Adaxial side matt green, with a brownish floccose cover of dendroid hairs mixed with long-stipitate gladular hairs, to be shed in time leaving scattered papillae, with marked impressed veins. Abaxial side covered by an unistrate, woolly, light greyish-beige indumentum of dendroid hairs, at the midrib mixed with glandular hairs. Leaf buds and flower buds slim, enclosed by long, narrow, pointed cover scales. Inflorescence an umbellate raceme. Rachis to 30 mm. Pedicel long-stipitate glandular, green, to 40 mm. Calyx 5 lobed. Lobes rounded, densely glandular, crimson, to 1.4 mm. Corolla with 5 lobesd, funnel-shaped, bright scarlet, spotted, outside glandular hairy, inside glabrous, 60 mm long. Ovary broad cylindrical, with impressions corresponding to the lower parts of filaments, white haired – glandular haired, with 6 loculi, c. 5 x 4 mm. Stamens 8, unequal in lenght. Lower part of filaments glandular. Filaments red. Anthers black, 2.6 – 2.7 mm. Style straight, glabrous, crimson, 28 mm, with truncated cone-shaped stigma, 2.4 mm. Capsule unknown. Seeds with well-developed floating appendages and with wings, 1.5 – 2.1 mm. Origin: Seeds from Scotland (AC30 OP). Native habitat: China, W Yunnan (and Myanmar), China at 1600 – 2700m according to Flora of China.