Tab. 6948. 



RHODODENDRON geandk, var. roseum. 



Native of the Eastern Himalaya. 



Nat. Ord. EErcE^;. — Tribe Rhodorej:. 

 Genus Rhododendbox, Linn. (Ben/k. et Hook.f. Gen. PI. vol. ii. p. 599.) 



Rhododendron grande, Wight Ic. Plant. Ind. Or. t. 1202 ; Clarke in Fl. Brit. 

 Ind. vol. iii. p. 464. 



R. argenteum, Hook.f. Rhododendrons of the Sikkim Himalaya, p. 10, t. 9, and 

 in Joarn. Hort. Soe. vol. vii. p. 76 and 91 ; Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 5054 ; Flore 

 des Sei-res, vol. v. (1849), t. 473-476 (copied from Ehod. ofSikk. Hi ma I.). 



11. longifolium, Nicttall in Hook. Kew Journ. vol. v. (1853), p. 365. 



K. Windsorii, var. y, Nuttall I. c. p. 357, 358. 



Waldemaria argentea, Klotzsch in Beis. Pr. Waldem. Bot. p. 99, t. 53, 5 1. 



Vae. rosea, floribus roseis. 



The plant here figured is a remarkable instance of a 

 sudden change of colour of corolla in an individual long 

 under cultivation. Rhododendron grande, better known as 

 B. argenteum, was introduced by myself by seed from the 

 Sikkim Himalaya in 1841), and plants raised from those 

 seeds, now of great size, are still flourishing in the Tem- 

 perate House of the Royal Gardens. The colour of the 

 corolla, as shown in my drawing made in Sikkim, and re- 

 produced in the " Rhododendrons of the Sikkim Himalaya," 

 is nearly white with a dark red purple lobed spot at the 

 base ; in the drawing published in this Magazine (Tab. 5054), 

 made from specimens that flowered in the Royal Gardens 

 in 1858, they are more cream-coloured, with a faint greenish 

 tinge, and the buds are a very pale rose-colour; and with 

 little variation the colours of all the specimens that have 

 flowered during the last thirty years, and these are very 

 many, have approximated very closely to those of the 

 above-mentioned plants, except that in one of the specimens 

 there has been observed a darker rose-colour of the buds. 

 In the present year the buds of the above individual have 

 been of a deep red, and the full-blown corolla a lively rose- 



apgust 1st, 1S87. 



