Rhododendron schlippenbachii

Description with 21 photos. Photo: Finn Bertelsen. A few feet high, twiggy, deciduous shrub, with a rounded growth form. Fully hardy, but vulnerable to late frost. Young shoots brownish with scattered glands, later glabrous. Petiole winged, stipitate glandular, 2-4 mm. Leaves burst simultaneous with flowers from terminal buds. Leaves in whorls of 5-7. Leaf blade obovate, papery, to 58 x 34 mm. Apex obtuse to rounded, with mucro. Leaf base broadly cuneate. Leaf adaxial side and leaf margin with scattered setae and glands, tinged bronze at first, later green. Midrib densely puberulous and glandular. Leaf lower side with scattered stipitate glands, with densely puberulous and glandular midrib. Bud scales brown, with flattened setae in the middle part and with scattered glandular hairs. Inflorescens an umbel with 3-6 flowers. Pedicel stipitate glandular, to 12 mm. Calyx with 5 rounded, triangular lobes stipitate glandular, to 6.2 mm (lobes 4.3 mm). Corolla with 5 lobes, widely rotate-funnel-shaped, glabrous, whitish pink with dark red-brown spots, c. 55 mm wide, c. 10 mm deep. Ovary ovoid, densely glandular, with 5 loculi, 3-4 mm. Stamens 10, unequal in length, proximally pubescent, extending from corolla. Style proximally glandular, to c. 25 mm, longer than stamens, with slightly swollen, disc-shaped, red-brown stigma, 1.4 mm. Capsule ovoid, glandular, to 16 mm. Seeds  with small floating appendages, without wings, 1.9-2.3 mm. Native habitat: Liaoning (Manchuria), Nei Mongol (Inner Mongolia), Korea, Japan, E Russia at 400-1500 m according to Flora of China efloras org.