BALFOUR—NEW SPECIES OF RHODODENDRON. 197 
rusty lepidote outside ciliate, at the tip scale-fringed. Leaves 
petiolate as much as 1.1 cm. long; lamina thickly leathery 
oblong-oval or oval or oblong-ovate as much as g mm. long 
3 mm. broad with an obtuse or rounded apex here and there 
mucronulate, the margin slightly recurved, broadly obtuse at 
base ; upper surface dark green opaque clad with peltate con- 
tiguous drying-up scales each with a broad umbo usually un- 
coloured and an equally broad translucent fringe, midrib scarcely 
grooved ; under surface tawny rust-coloured clothed with con- 
tiguous peltate scales but often with a narrow naked interval 
between forming a bistrate indumentum, some scales rust- 
coloured of an upper stratum with a broad umbo full of secretion 
and an equally broad scintillating fringe, others equally mixed 
of a lower stratum uncoloured, midrib slightly prominent ; 
petiole as much as 2 mm. long lepidote like the stem. Flowers 
1-2 at the apex of the shoots, nearly sessile ; bracts few more or 
less persistent during flowering ; outer ones crustaceous rounded 
hooded keeled mucronulate rusty-lepidote outside margin thinner 
ciliate ; innermost membranous pale brown oblong or obovate- 
oblong about 6.5 mm. long 3.5 mm. broad lepidote and puberulous 
outside woolly-ciliate ; pedicels barely 1 mm. long densely lepi- 
dote. Calyx most minute barely 0.5 mm. long cup-shaped 5-lobed; 
lobes rounded or tooth-like densely lepidote outside scale-fringed. 
Corolla blue-violet about 1.3 cm. long lepidote and epilose out- 
side; tube campanulate about 2.5 mm. long puberulous in the 
throat expanding into a concave 5-lobed limb ; lobes oblong or 
oblong-oval as much as 8 mm. long 5 mm. broad obtuse undulate. 
Stamens ro shorter than corolla, alternately long and short, 
longer about 9 mm. long with anther rt mm. long; filaments 
broadened downwards and villous within the tube of the corolla 
above their naked base. Disk puberulous. Gynaeceum about 
7 mm. long shorter than corolla and stamens ; ovary cylindric 
narrow 2 mm. long slightly sulcate densely imbricately yellowish- 
lepidote ; style red-purple glabrous straight slightly expanded 
under the lobulate dark purple discoid stigma. Capsule reddened 
covered by the vestiges of peltate scales narrow oblong about 
4 mm. long 1.75 mm. in diameter dehiscing by 5 valves from 
apex to base. 
W. Szechwan. Tatsienlu. Fleurs bleu-violet. J. A. Soulié. 
No. 2772. Juin 27, 1894. In Herb. Paris. 
Rh. vicarium is not a Yunnan species. As a Tatsienlu plant 
it takes one for a comparison to the known forms from Szechwan. 
These are (with their discoverers’ names) :—alpicolum (Wilson) 
and its var. strictum (Wilson), blepharocalyx (Sou ié), Edgarianum 
(Wilson), fastigiatum (Wilson), flavidum (Soulié), intricatum 
(Soulié), nitidulwm (Wilson) and its var, nubigenum (Wilson), 
