SECT. PENTANTHERA x RHODORA 



Rhododendron canadense x luteum = Rhododendron Seymouri 



Herbert ex Lindley in Bot. Reg. XXIII. t. 1975 (1837), as synon. 

 De Candolle, Prodr. VII. 728 (1839). 



Azalea Seymouri Lindley in Bot. Reg. XXIII. t. 1975 (1837). 

 Rhododendron flavum i. Seymourii Sweet, Hort. Brit. ed. 3, 442 (1839). 



This is a very interesting hybrid, being the first raised between species of the 

 sections Pentanthera and Rhodora. It is clearly intermediate between R. cana- 

 dense and R. luteum; the flowers are small, of a pale yellow color with a faint tinge 

 of pink and appear with the leaves; the stamens are shorter than the corolla-lobes 

 and 7 to 9 in number. According to Herbert "A great number of plants were 

 raised at Spofforth from Rhodora Canadensis impregnated with the pollen of Azalea 

 Pontica. Their constitution seemed ticklish or the peat in which they were grown 

 disagreed with them and only one plant was preserved, which formed a healthy 

 low bush, more spreading than Rhodora." 



Rhododendron Seymouri is apparently no longer in cultivation. It was not a 

 showy plant with its small pale yellow flowers and thus the chief incentive to propa- 

 gate it was lacking. There is, however, no reason why among seedlings of this 

 cross should not appear plants with the color of R. canadense , and those certainly 

 would be much handsomer and more like the following hybrid. 



Rhododendron canadense x japonicum = Rhododendron Fraseri 



W. Watson in Gard. Chron. ser. 3, LXVII. 225 (1920). See also page 

 103. 



This interesting and handsome hybrid was raised by Mr. G. Fraser of Ucluelet, 

 Vancouver Island, B. C., by crossing R. canadense with R. japonicum in 1912. 

 The young plants flowered for the first time in 1919 and the same year Mr. Fraser 

 kindly sent a living plant to the Arnold Arboretum which flowered in the spring 

 of 1920. On account of the earliness of its profusely produced, rosy mauve flowers 

 much larger than those of Rhodora the new hybrid will have a decided ornamental 

 value and will also be useful for forcing. To supplement the short description in 

 the Gardeners' Chronicle (I. c.) a fuller description may be given here. 



Low shrub of slender twiggy habit; young branchlets finely pubescent and 

 strigose, yellow-brown and glabrous the second year; winter-buds, consisting of 

 10 to 12, finely pubescent, ovate and mucronulate scales. Leaves elliptic-oblong to 

 oblong, acute and gland-tipped at apex, cuneate at base, 4 to 6 cm. long and about 

 2 cm. broad, ciliate, bright green, sparingly and finely villose and strigillose above, 

 lighter green or sometimes glaucescent beneath and short-villose, strigillose on the 

 midrib and veins, rather thin and often only slightly villose at maturity, with 

 10 to 12 pairs of veins prominent beneath and yellowish; pedicels slender, 5 to 

 8 mm. long, slightly villose and strigose while young. Flowers scentless, in dense 

 8- to 15-flowered clusters; pedicels 1 to 1.5 cm. long, finely pubescent and glandu- 

 lar-pilose; sepals unequal, ovate, 1 to 2 cm. long, ciliate with long setose eglandular 



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