Tis Pt y 
: RHODODENDRON Fatconzri, var. eximia. 
ee : Native of Bhotan. 
Nat. Ord. Ericacz#.—Tribe Ruopore®. 
.Genus Ruopopenpron, Linn. ; (Benth. & Hook. f. Gen. Pi. vol. ii. p. 599.) 
Ruopopenpron (Eurhododendron) Falconeri, Hook. f. Rhod. Sikkim Himal. 
t. 10; in Journ. Hort. Soe. Lond. vol. vii..p. 76,97. Hook. Bot. Mag. t. 
4924, Fl. des Serres, vol. v. (1849), t. 479-80 and vol. xi. t. 1166-7, 
Regel Gartenfl. t. 658. Clarke in Hook. f. Fl. Brit. Ind. vol. iii. p. 465. 
R. venosum, Nutt. in Hook. Kew Journ. Bot. vol. v. (1853), p. 365, 
Rhododendron, Griff. Itin. Notes, p. 140, No. 654. 
Var. eximia; corolla rosea fundo intus immaculata. 
R, eximium, Nutt. 1. ¢. p. 304, 
- Of all the species of Sikkim Rhododendrons, numbering 
nearly thirty, &. Falconeri has proved to be one of the 
most hardy in England, and it is at the same time the 
largest of the genus, for though often growing as a gre- 
garious shrub, it more frequently attains thirty feet in 
height, with a truly arboreous habit. Plants raised from. 
seeds which I sent home in 1849, grown in the open air, 
with no other covering than a mat at night, flowered in 
1856, both at Liverpool and Bagshot ; and at the present 
time (April) I am informed of trees twenty feet and more 
in height being loaded with blossoms in Cornwall and in 
Surrey, under no protection whatever. To these attributes 
must be added that it is by far the noblest of the hitherto 
discovered species ; for neither in Asia nor America dves 
any one approach it in sturdiness of trunk and branches, 
in the dark green deeply reticulated upper surface of the 
coriaceous leaves, which attain a foot in length, or in the 
rich rusty-brown woolly clothing of their under-surface and 
petiole ; and it has further the largest flowers of those in 
which the flowers are disposed in massive trusses. 
As with so many of its congeners, it is very variable, 
' Octosser Ist, 1893, 
