Tas. 4930. 
RHODODENDRON BuanprorpDi#FLorRuM. 
Blandfordia-flowered Rhododendron. 
Nat. Ord. Ertcua.—DxrcaNnpria Monocynlia. 
Gen. Char. (Vide supra, Tas. 4336.) 
RHODODENDRON Blandfordieflorum ; frutex ramulosus, ramulis gracilibus vir- 
gatis lepidotis, foliis lanceolatis acuminatis coriaceis breve petiolatis subtus 
ferrugineo-lepidotis, capitulis 5—10-floris, floribus pendulis breve pedicel- 
latis, corolla carnose infundibuliformis tubo elongato cylindraceo lobis ob- 
longis obtusis acutisye. 
The subject of our present plate is another of Dr. Hooker’s 
discoveries in the Himalaya Mountains of Eastern Nepal and 
Sikkim, where it is not uncommon at elevations of 10,000 to 
12,000 feet, both in valleys and on the mountain-tops and 
ridges. It forms a slender, rather ugly, sparingly leafy, twiggy 
bush, with often very ornamental flowers, which are extremely 
variable and even wholly dissimilar in colour, and often in form. 
A comparison of Plate VIII. of Dr. Hooker’s ‘Sikkim Rhodo- 
'dendrons’ and of our Plate 4788 with that now figured, would 
ro] 
never suggest the probability of the plants there delineated being 
nearly related, nor were we at all inclined to regard them as such 
until these and other varieties—all flowering about the same time 
both in the Royal Gardens and Pleasure-grounds at Kew, in the 
Horticultural Society’s Gardens, and elsewhere—showed so many 
clearly marked transition states, that we have no alternative but 
to regard them as very closely allied plants. An examination 
of Dr. Hooker’s extensive swites of dried specimens further con- 
firms this opinion ; and amongst his unpublished drawings, made 
from the wild plants in Sikkim, is another form or species with 
longer, more slender flowers, much more deeply coloured than 
any which we have seen in cultivation. How far these forms 
may prove permanent in this country remains to be seen, but 
AUGUST Ist, 1856. 
