184 BALFOUR—NEW SPECIES OF RHODODENDRON. 
hairs on it above the ovarian hair-crest slightly clavate at top 
with a green lip under the small flat green lobulate stigma which 
is hardly as broad as the style. 
Raised by M. de Vilmorin from seed probably collected by 
Farges in E. Szechwan. 
This is a: plant which seems to pass commonly in gardens as 
the white-flowered form of Rh. Augustinii, Hemsl. There is a 
figure of it in Flora and Silva, iii (1905), 162. The plant is not 
Rh. Augustinii. Everyone who has grown Rh. Augustini knows 
the character by which the species is readily recognised—the 
downy midrib on the under surface of the leaves which surface 
is otherwise lepidote but not hairy. Search for it in Rh. Vilmo- 
yinianum is. vain. There then is a technical diagnostic mark 
between the species. It is one that can be seen at all times 
making easy recognition of plants not in flower. But it is 
by no means the only distinctive mark. The two plants are 
altogether different in habit. Rh. Vilmorinianum, whether 
grown in exposed situations outside or under shelter in a 
cool plant-house is a stiff erect shrub with straight diverging 
branches bearing stiff horizontal leaves with flat upper surface 
in the growing season, and during the resting period the leaves 
are often stiffly deflexed on petioles about one centimeter long, 
whilst Rh. Augustinii is a flexuously branched shrub with 
leaves usually convex above and drooping on petioles about 
half a centimeter long. The flower-buds are globular ovoid 
and stand up well above the leaves during the resting period, 
surrounded below by a small cluster of small vegetative buds ; 
in Rh. Augustinit the flower-buds are ovoid pointed much 
narrower and longer and the vegetative buds below are longer. 
The inflorescence is in all the plants seen a 3-flowered umbel 
never rising to 6-flowered as in RA. Augustinit, in which too there 
may occur a fascicle of umbels at the end of the branch, and the 
pedicels are short about one centimeter (or under it) long not 
1.5-2 cm. The corolla as it elongates from the bracts is more 
or less green and changes through a yellowish-white to white 
with ochre-coloured spots posteriorly on the disk and the lobes 
are beautifully undulate almost fringed ; in RA. Augustinii the 
corolla shoots out with a lilac or blue tint and when expanded 
has the same tint with green spots and the undulations on 
the lobes are less pronounced. The stamens barely equal 
the corolla in length in Rh. Vilmorinianum not longer than 
the corolla as is usual in Rh. Augustiniz, and the anthers are 
crimson not pink. 
Whether there is in cultivation another white-flowered plant 
which is truly a form of Rh. Augustinii I do not know. The 
plant here described certainly differs from Rh. Augustinit., 
