ENUMERATION OF THE SPECIES 85 



finds the northern limits of its range in Hidaka province. On volcanic ash, lava- 

 flows and on cliffs in many places, as in the Nikko region, lower slopes of Mt. Fuji and 

 on the Hakone mountains for example, it is extraordinarily abundant both in open 

 country, in thickets, on the margins of woods and as undergrowth in thin forests. 

 It is in flower from early in March to late in June according to latitude and altitude 

 and produces in great abundance its rose- to red-purple or rich magenta-colored 

 blossoms. The richest colors are on plants in the open, and in dense shade the 

 color is quite pale. Nowadays magenta is not a popular color in the west but 

 massed and alone save for the varying shades of green the flowers of this Azalea 

 are impressive. The plant forms a much-branched bush or bushy tree from 1 to 

 8 metres tall, with numerous erect or erect-spreading verticillate, slender but 

 rigid branches, yellow-brown and sparsely or densely hairy when young, usually 

 soon becoming glabrous, and in the second year pale gray. In the shade the 

 branches are more sparse and the plants less compact and shapely in habit. 

 The winter-buds are conic and acute, with rufous- or gray-brown, villose and ciliate 

 scales, the inner ones being viscid. The leaves unfold as the corollas fall, and are 

 clustered in threes or in pairs at the end of the branchlets, and vary in shape from 

 broad-ovate to rhombic or occasionally to ovate, and terminate in a short mucro. 

 In size they vary from 3 to 6 cm. in length and from 2.5 to 5.5. cm. in width, with 

 petioles from 0.5 to 1.5 long. In the shade the leaves are membranous but in the 

 open they are firm and the reticulation is more prominent; they are dark green 

 above, pale even sub-glaucous below, and in the autumn change to vinous or 

 blackish purple or occasionally to yellow with splashes of red-purple. The 

 principal veins are impressed above and raised and usually more or less villose 

 on the under surface. When young the leaves are densely clothed with long, 

 or with short and long, appressed, gray to yellow-brown pilose hairs which dis- 

 appear early from the upper and entirely or partially from the lower surface. The 

 petiole is flattened and usually villose, but may be glabrous and glaucescent. The 

 flowers are borne at the end of the shoots in pairs or solitary or in clusters 

 of three or four. The corolla is from 3.5 to 5 cm. across usually unspotted, 

 with a short tube and spreading lobes which are often divergent and give the 

 corolla a two-lipped appearance. The pedicels are clothed with gray or brownish 

 appressed hairs, and the minute, 5-toothed calyx is ciliate, villose or glabrescent. 

 The stamens are normally 10, in two series, the longer equalling the corolla in 

 length, the shorter half as long, the filaments curving upward; the anthers are 

 purple. The ovary is covered with short straight hairs, or is lepidote, or lepidote and 

 hairy, and the style is hairy or glabrous; the stigma capitate and minutely 5-lobed. 

 The fruit is curved, cylindric, from 1 to 1.5 cm. long, furrowed, lepidote, glabrous, 

 or clothed with gray or brown soft hairs. 



I have gone very minutely into the degree of variation exhibited by this plant 

 for I realize that those who compare the two figures in the Botanical Magazine 

 will find it difficult to appreciate that they represent the same species and really 

 only differ in the number of stamens. In the array of specimens before me and 

 cited above the variations mentioned are all shown and neither among them nor 

 in the field have I been able to distinguish two species. The distinguishing char- 

 acters emphasized by Maximowicz are inconstant except the number of stamens 

 and I am doubtful if careful examination among many plants would not reveal 

 flowers with five and others with ten stamens on the same plant. I have 10- 

 stamened flowers with a lepidote ovary and style, with a hirsute and lepidote 

 ovary and glabrous style; I have 5-stamened flowers which show exactly the same 

 variation. On both forms I find glabrous leaves and leaves more or less pubescent 

 below especially on the principal veins. 



Miquel had only leaf specimens and founded his two species chiefly on the 

 difference in shape of the leaves. On every plant of this species as here understood 



