ENUMERATION OF THE SPECIES 149 



Sept. 26, 1911, H. H. Bartlett (No. 2857; Nat. Herb. No. 586,340); 

 three miles east of Florence, April 17, 1897, L. F. Ward (Nat. Herb. No. 

 284,925); GeorgetownCounty: Georgetown (type locality), April 

 25, 1918, T. G. Harbison (Nos. 11, 14). 



This species is restricted to the coastal plain region from Delaware to South 

 Carolina. It is characteristic of the low pine lands, where it forms extensive colonies 

 almost to the exclusion of the other shrubs and often occupies large stretches; the 

 low stoloniferous shrubs, rarely more than half a meter high, dotted over the grassy 

 forest floor, form in spring with their white or pinkish very fragrant flowers a 

 conspicuous feature of these woods. I noticed it from the railroad train from north- 

 ern South Carolina to Virginia for a distance of more than 150 miles almost every- 

 where in the pine woods and often spreading into the adjacent fields. 



Rhododendron atlanticum seems to be most closely related to R. viscosum, with 

 which it agrees perfectly in its leaves, in the shape of the corolla with its slender 

 cylindrical tube, glabrous inside and glandular-hirsute outside, in the strong frag- 

 rance of its flowers and in the densely setose but scarcely villose capsule, but usually 

 it can be easily distinguished by its low stoloniferous habit, its early appearing 

 flowers, the usually nearly glabrous branchlets and the absence of the fine pubes- 

 cence on the outside of the corolla and the less abrupt expansion of its tube into 

 the limb. There are, however, particularly in the coastal plain region from Mary- 

 land to South Carolina, forms of R. viscosum of low and somewhat stoloniferous 

 habit (see page 159) which might be confused with R. atlanticum and in the south 

 R. viscosum begins to flower often about or sometimes before the middle of May, 

 but the flowers of that species always appear after the leaves are nearly fully 

 developed and the fine villose pubescence of the outside of the corolla, absent or 

 nearly absent in R. atlanticum, and the generally slenderer corolla more abruptly 

 dilated at the apex afford characters to separate the two species. Rhododendron 

 atlanticum has been also confused with R. nudiflorum, but from that species it is 

 readily distinguished by the low stoloniferous habit, by the smaller obovate leaves 

 chartaceous at maturity, the very fragrant flowers, the much longer tube of the 

 corolla glandular-hirsute outside and lacking the fine villose pubescence of the 

 corolla of R. nudiflorum, by the glabrous inner surface of the corolla-tube and 

 the conspicuous rows of stipitate glands at the apex of the flower-bud. 



Rhododendron atlanticum has always been confused with the two species just 

 mentioned until Ashe described it in 1917 as a new species. The oldest specimens 

 I have seen are those collected as Azalea nudiflora by M. A. Curtis, one on Society 

 Hill, South Carolina, representing at least partly the variety luteo-album, and one 

 collected near Wilmington, North Carolina, probably in the early thirties while 

 he was residing at Wilmington. The species is in cultivation at the Arnold Arbore- 

 tum, where a plant was received in 1920 from Mr. Ashe who had grown it in his 

 garden at Washington for several years; it is doubtful, however, if this species 

 proves hardy in the northern states. 



Rhododendron atlanticum f. neglectum Rehder, comb. nov. 

 Azalea neglecta Ashe in Bull Torr. Bot. Club, XLVII. 581 (1920). 



This form, based by Ashe on specimens collected by him near Georgetown, 

 South Carolina, May, 1916, is hardly specifically distinct from R. atlanticum; it 

 differs chiefly in the purplish pink color of its flowers, the somewhat shorter and 

 wider tube and the usually more villose pubescence of the corolla. Specimens of 

 his new species collected near Kinlock, South Carolina, on May 1, 1920, kindly sent 



