NAT. ORDER. 



EricecB. < . ^ 



RHODODENDKON AEBOREUM. TREE RHODODENDRON. 



Var. — Album. White-Floweeed Variety. 



Class X. Decandria. Order I. Monogynia. 



Gen. Ciiar. Calyx, five-parted. Corolla, somewhat flinnel-form or 

 campanulate : limb variously five-cleft or lobed. Stamens, five 

 to ten, declined. Antliers, opening by two terminal pores. Cap- 

 sules, five-celled, five-valved, opening- at the summit. 



<^e. Cliar. Leaves, alternate, oval, entire, subrevolute on the mar- 

 gins, glaucous-pubescent beneath. Floicers, mostly in terminal 

 corymbose clusters. Corolla, deeply divided into three segments, 

 if which the upper one is much the broadest, two or three-lobed 

 •It the end. 



This is a handsome flowering shruh, remarkable for the appear- 

 ing of the flowers in May, before the leaves are expanded. The 

 stems are about two feet high, dividing at their tops into many erect, 

 slender, flowering branches. Each branch, while yet naked of fohage, 

 has a terminal corymbose cluster of half a dozen white flowers. 



The corolla is about an inch long ; the stamens are curved down- 

 wards, about equal to the corolla, but rather shorter than the style. 

 This plant coiTcsponds with the Linnaean Rhododendron in all re- 

 spects save tlie very in'egular corolla ; and even in this it is not es- 

 sentially different. The various species of the Rhododendron seem 

 to appear to be subject to much variation in the size and color of the 

 flowers, if we judge from the figures with which we are acquainted. 

 The TMtive plant produces comparatively small flowers, and are of a 



Vol. TV.— 11. 



