198 TRANSACTIONS OF THE [Sess. lxxxi 



grooved glabrous very rarely with a few solitary single 

 glands occasionally sprinkled with floccose greasy hairs ; 

 style glabrous longer than the stamens slightly expanding 

 into a slightly clavate apex under the lobulate not discoid 

 stigma. 



E.X.W. Yunnan: — Summit of the Sungkwei pass. Alt. 

 11,000-12,000 ft. Open situations. Shrub of 10-15 ft. 

 Flowers deep magenta-rose with darker markings. G. 

 Forrest. No. 5845. May 1910; in rhododendron forests. 

 Tree of 20-30 ft. G. Forrest. No. 5848. May 1910. 



A species which recalls Rh. anthosphaerum, Diels, and it 

 comes from the same area — the Sungkwei Pass — but it is 

 quite distinct. 



Like Rh. antliosphacmm it has broadly lanceolate leaves 

 darkly olivaceous on the upper surface, punctulate below, 

 and there the midrib sometimes shows a few glands. The 

 petioles are usually shorter than in Rh. anthosphaeriim. 

 Here the corolla is 7-lobed and the stamens correlatively 

 14. This has not been seen in Rh. anthosphaerum, where 

 5-6 petaline lobes and 10-12 stamens in tlie flower are met 

 with. Whether or no this is a critical difference future 

 observation must determine. It is in the material we 

 possess definitely diagnostic. Other characters distin- 

 guishing Rh. hylotlireptum froui Rh. antJtosphaerum are 

 the puberulous calycine lobes, tlie filaments of the stamens 

 copiously puberulous to the middle or Ijc^yond not merely 

 finely puberulous at the base, the typically glabrous ovary. 



The species is in cultivation under No. 5848, and we have 

 at Edinl)urgh several planthits. All of these do not show 

 the characters we expect in RIi. hijlijl/iirpturti, hut they are 

 too young as yet to ofi'ei- sound evidence in reply to the 

 question — What are they ? The dried specimens show the 

 plant as most ilorifei-ous, and, coming as it does from a high 

 altitude in the north-west of Yunnan, we may expect it to 

 be thoroughly hardy. The flower colour- does not, however, 

 appear to be of depth and intensity sufiicient to give it a 

 prominent claim for favour in gardens in competition with 

 species of the Sanguineum series or the Thomsoni series. 



In addition to the Nos. 5845 and 5848 cited above, we 

 have another plant from Forrest, with the label : — 



"E.N.W. Yunnan: — Neai- the summit of the Suno'kwei 



