thus sharing with /2. racemosum, Franch., another Yunnan 
species already familiar owing to its suitability for culti- 
vation in masses in flower-beds, and already figured at 
t. 7301 of this work, the characteristic of producing its 
blossoms at a very early stage of its career. Another 
feature which £. oleifolium shares with its near ally 
ft. racemosum is that rare character in Rhododendrons, 
the production of solitary axillary flowers. To this 
peculiarity is due the distinctive habit of these two 
species; their leaf-bearing buds as a consequence are 
always terminal, and a primary shoot, having once 
flowered, never branches again save when it has been 
injured. Although the particular plant of R. oleifolium 
now depicted was raised under the protection of a cold 
frame we believe the species may prove hardy, for other 
plants, grown out of doors, have shown no signs of 
tenderness as yet, though the species has not been 
sufficiently long in cultivation to admit of our judging 
how resistant to English weather conditions it may be 
as compared with its better known ally, 2. racemosum. 
From that species R. oleifolium is readily distinguished 
by the longer and narrower leaves, and especially by the 
presence of a soft hairy indumentum on the outside of 
the corolla-tube as well as by the lepidote style. 
Descripti0n.— Shrub of small size, reaching a height of 23 ft., laxly branched 
upwards; stem yellowish-grey, glabrous; shoots of the second season rusty, 
finely lepidote; new shoots densely lepidote. Leaves lax, lanceolate or oblong- 
lanceolate, acute, narrowed or somewhat rounded at the base, 1-2} in. long, 
378 in. wide, papery, at first lepidote, but soon glabrous and dull green above, 
somewhat glaucous and lepidote beneath, the scales small and fleshy and 
rather further than their own breadth apart; midrib sunk above, raised 
beneath ; lateral nerves 8-10 along each side, raised beneath ; petiole 4-1 in. 
long, without scales. Flowers solitary or in pairs, axillary; flower-buds narrow 
ellipsoid, about 2 in. long before the flowers open, their scales brown, without 
scales outside, the uppermost finely ciliolate, pedicels very short and hardly 
exserted from the scales, densely lepidote. Calyx 5-lobed; lobes ovate- 
. triangular, blunt, 3, in. long, sparingly lepidote near the base outside. Corolla 
rose-coloured, tubular, 1-11 in. long, 5-lobed; tube 2 in. long, about } in. wide 
at the mouth, lepidote above, near the base devoid of scales, but there softly 
pubescent; lobes wide-ovate, rounded at the tip, about } in. long, densely 
lepidote outside. Stamens 10, longer than the corolla-tube ; filaments flattened, 
pubescent near the base, anthers in. long. Ovary 5-celled, densely lepidote ; 
style about as long as the corolla, lepidote and sparingly pubescent near the 
base, tipped by a large 5-lobulate stigma. Capsule 2 in. long, rusty-lepidote. 
Tas. 8802.—Fig. 1, portion of a leaf, showing apex and under-surface; 
2, calyx and pistil; 3, a leaf-scale; 4 and 5, stamens; 6, transverse section of 
ovary :—all enlarged, ae, 
