80 < TRANS ACTIONS OF THE [Sess. lxxx 



o-roiip is the presence of few-Howered (3-5) umbels of small 

 flowers with sulphur-yellow corollas. The corolla is shortly 

 campanulate, always lepidote outside, and pubescent on 

 the back of the tube inside. The lobes are large and 

 apparently patent in full flower. The ten stamens, always 

 shorter than the corolla, have large ovoid anthers, and the 

 filaments of the posterior ones are white villous about the 

 middle just at the top of the ovary, and thus form a pompon 

 at the mouth of the corolla tube. The other stamens are 

 shortly pubescent for a short distance from the base up- 

 wards. The ovary is always lepidote. The style, glabrous 

 and decurved, expands into a lobulate stigma. 



KEY TO THE SPECIES. 



Hispid with long stiff hairs : 



Calvx lobes 5 iiim. long, long ciliate. Corolla 2 cm. 

 long lepidote outside. Style shorter than or equal- 

 ling stamens ...... trichocladum 



Calyx lobes 4 mm. long, long ciliate. Corolla 1 cm. 

 lonff lepidote outside. Style described as shorter 

 than ovary < . . • . . . mekongense 



Lanate : 



Calvx lobes 2 mm. long scarcely ciliate. Corolla 2 cm. 



lone lepidote outside. Style longer than stamens . melinanthxim 



Calyx lobes 2 mm. long barbate. Corolla 2 cm. long 

 lepidote and lanate outside. Style shorter than 

 stamens ...... xanihimim 



Rhododendron trichocladiiiii, Franchet in Bull. Soc. Bot. 

 Fr., xxxiii (1886), 234.^ 

 Undershrub, branchlets of the year hairy with lutescent 

 rigid setae. Leaves firmly chartaceous obovate, dark green 

 above with adpressed strigose hairs and with scattered 

 lutescent squamellae, pale beneath and more densely 

 lepidote, also hirtellous on the midrib and margin as well 

 as on the petiole with rigid setae. Flowers 3-4 fasciculate 

 at the apex of the branchlets, pedicels elongate and patently 



' llh. Irichodadum.—YvwticwXn^, raiiiis hornotinis .setis rigidis lutes- 

 cenlibus hirtis. Folia tirmiter chartacea, obovata, supra atrovirentia, 

 pilis strigosis adpressis, squamulis([ue lutescentiljus conspersa, subtus 

 pallida magis dense lepidota et praeterea ad nervum medium, simul ac 

 ad margiuem et petiolum setis rigidis hirtella. Flores 3-4, ad apicem 

 ramulorum fasciculati, sulphurei, pednnculiselongatis simul et calycibus 

 uatentim villosis ; calyx niembranaceus ex viridi lutescens, lobis ovatis 

 lon"e liiiibriato-ciliatis ; corolla glabra, tubo brevissimo, rotata fere 

 2 cent. diam. ; stamina 10, filamentis brevibus ad medium hirtellis ; 

 ovarium dense lepidotum. 



