Rhododendron prinophyllum

Description with 16 photos. Photo: Finn Bertelsen. A decideous shrub, fully hardy in the garden. Stolonifeous. Branchlets at first covered by curly hairs, later glabrous. Leaf blade elliptic to obovate, papery. Leaf apex acute to acute-obtuse, with mucro. Leaf base cuneate. Leaf adaxial side green, when bursting with bronzy shades, with scattered cover of tiny, colourless hairs. Leaf margin with bristles. Leaf abaxial side light green, pubescent especially on veins. Flower bud spindle-shaped, greenish, densely puberulent on bud scales. Bud scales with dark margins. Inflorescence with up to 8 flowers. Pedicel densely covered by stipitate, glandular hairs. Calyx with glandular hairs, lobes rounded, with marginal bristles. Corolla with 5 lobes, tubular-funnel-shaped, with pink tube and whitish rose lobes with pink shades and stripes, fragrant. Outer side of corolla, mainly the tube, with glandular hairs. Ovary enclosed by transparent, stipitate, glandular hairs. Stamens, 5, proximally pubescent. Style purple-red, glabrous, expanding toward the stigma. Stamens and style protruding  far from the mouth of corolla, all parallel to each other and upwards bent. Capsule c.15 mm long, cylindrical, densely covered by glandular hairs. Seeds  with well-developed floating appendages, 2.5-2.9 mm. Native habitat: In several states of eastern USA according to Flora of North America efloras org.