94 THE AZALEAS OF THE OLD WORLD 



Japan: Hondo, prov. Uzen, near Toge, alt. 1000 m., July 20, 

 October 23, 1914, E. H. Wilson (Nos. 7219, 7191). 



This little known Japanese species is confined to the mountains of north-central 

 Hondo. It is very distinct in its flowers and fruit and also in its papery, cinnamon- 

 brown bark which shreds off and leaves polished brown stems and branches. No 

 other species with deciduous leaves has such attractive bark. In habit it forms an 

 upright, bushy shrub from 1 to 2 m. high, with rigid, red-brown branches clothed 

 with pilose and glandular hairs. The winter-buds are pale straw-color tinged 

 with purple, large, ovoid, with ciliate, eglandular bud-scales. The leaves are 

 scattered, sessile, membranous and deciduous; they have appressed, hispid hairs 

 on both surfaces and the margins are ciliate; in shape they are panduriform, from 

 6 to 18 cm. long and from 3.5 to 8.5 cm. wide, with the apex rounded or truncate, 

 usually emarginate, rarely obtuse, and are narrowed to the base, which is firmly 

 appressed to the stem and often has a curious shield-like protuberance continued 

 below the point of insertion; the veins are prominent and reticulate on the under 

 side and many are furnished with strigose hairs. In the autumn the leaves are 

 tinted from orange to crimson. The flowers are small and not conspicuous, and 

 open in late June and July with, or even after, the leaves. They are borne from 

 6 to 15 together in terminal, umbellate corymbs. The corolla is white, tubular or 

 campanulate, from 1.5 to 2 cm. long and from 0.8 to 1 cm. broad, with 5 short, 

 very slightly spreading lobes. The calyx is small, membranous, with lobes of 

 unequal size, and like the slender pedicel is covered with viscid hairs. The 

 stamens are of unequal length, 10 in number and are included, as is the style, 

 which is straight and slightly thickened below the capitate stigma. The fruit is 

 pendent, oval, from 8 to 10 mm. long, and has thin walls which open to the base 

 and have wavy margins. 



This species in foliage suggests R. Schlippenbachii Maxim., but otherwise is 

 very distinct. On the hills round Toge, near the base of Adzuma-san, in 1914, I 

 found this species to be common in rather open country. The season of flowering 

 was almost past. In the autumn I gathered seeds for the Arnold Arboretum, 

 which distributed them in America and Europe. The plants raised from these 

 seeds have not yet flowered in the Arboretum. This Azalea was unknown to 

 Japanese nurserymen until I gave plants to the Yokohama Nursery Company in 

 1914. Its bark and foliage is striking, but the size of the flowers and the manner 

 in which they are hidden by the leaves and young shoots detracts from the plant. 

 As a flowering shrub it is one of the least desirable of Japanese Azaleas. 



