1915-16.] BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF EDINBURGH 97 



Rhododendron lacteum, Franch. By Professor 

 Bayley Balfour, F.R.S. 



(Read 13tli April 1916.) 



Within the last few years there has flowered in cultiva- 

 tion in Europe a beautiful Chinese Rhododendron bearing 

 the name Rh. lacteum, Franch. It is one of the large- 

 leaved plants of the genus, is hardy, and produces a big 

 truss of white flowers blotched with crimson. It was dis- 

 covered in Yunnan by the Abbe Delavay, and from seeds 

 sent by him to the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, the plants 

 now flowering have originated. The first record of its 

 flowering in Britain was in 1910 in the garden of 

 Mr. F. D. Godman, South Lodge, Horsham. In France it 

 first flowered with M. de Vilmorin at Verrieres le Buisson 

 in 1912, the flowering plant being then twenty-two years 

 old.^ Unfortunately the wrong name has got attached to 

 the plant. It is not Rh. lacteum, Franch.^ and the aim of 

 this communication is to put right the nomenclature. 



In 1886^ Franch et described under the name Rh. lacteum,, 

 Franch. one of the first of many new Rhododendrons found 

 by the Abbe Delavay on the Alps of Yunnan. The de- 

 scription runs : — 



" Arbor. Folia crasse coriacea, ovato-elliptica, basi dis- 

 tincte cordata, supra intense viridia glabra, subtus pube 

 pallide rufescente obducta, quasi tomentella, nervis utrin- 

 secus 10-12. Flores 12-20 dense congesti,lactei, pedunculo 

 elongato breviter rufo-lanuginoso ; calyx minimus, dentibus 

 obsoletis, late triangulis ; corolla pollicaris, e basi late 

 campanulata, extus glaberrima, lobis 6; stamina 12, fila- 

 mentis basi scabridis ; ovarium breviter et dense rufo- 

 tomentellum, stylo ex toto glaberrimo. 



" Yunnan, in monte Koua-la-po silvas efficiens. (Delavaj^ 

 No. 164.)'" 



The full story on Delavay 's ticket is : — " No. 164. Arbre 



1 See Mottet in Rev. Hort. (1912), 275 ; id. in Gard. Chron., Nov. 27, 

 1915. In the Botanical Magazine (1911), t. 8372, there is an error in 

 the statement that it flowered with M. de Yihnorin in 1908, 



2 A short note stating this has appeared in the Gardeners' Chronicle 

 of March 25, 1916. 



3 Franchet in Bull. Soc. Bot. France, xxxiii (1886), 231. 



TEAXS. BOT. soc. EDIX. VOL. XXVII. 7 



