42 HUTCHINSON—THE MADDENI SERIES OF RHODODENDRON. 
pubescent towards the base ; anthers about 1 cm. long, reddish- 
brown. Ovary 5-celled, nearly 1 cm. long, densely lepidote only 
towards the base, curved towards the top, nearly as long as the 
corolla, crowned by a very large depressed stigma about 8 mm. 
indiameter. Capsule straight, 3-3.5 cm. long, the valves faintly 
keeled on the back, lepidote. Seeds 3 mm. long, broadly winged, 
light straw-coloured. 
Buutan. Duphla Hills at Meré Patar about Seram’s village, 
on the banks of the Papoo, swampy ground amongst Yews and 
Oaks at 4000-5000 ft., T. J. Booth. 
I have seen no other dried wild specimens than the original 
ones collected by Booth, of which there are four sheets at Kew, 
and upon which the above new description is based. 
This beautiful species needs no recommendation as a green- 
house plant; it is perhaps the finest of the lepidote-leaved 
Rhododendrons. Sir William Hooker (Bot. Mag. l.c.) described 
it as the “‘ Prince of Rhododendrons,”’ and continues, “‘ It flowered 
in the Rhododendron House at Kew in May of the present year 
[1859], and of which a drawing of the flowering portion, on 
imperial folio, is now before us. The height was nine feet. The 
principal branch was terminated by a corymb of ten or twelve 
flowers, the cluster measuring fifteen inches across ; the corollas 
white, yellow in the centre, having measured six inches across, 
with a tinge of blush on the lobes; and the bud, just before 
expansion, is of the same length. The leaves have their charms 
too; the largest of them a foot long, including the short thick 
petiole, are much puckered on the superior surface, that is 
swollen or blistered in the areoles of the network, and these 
reflect a strong light. Nor does this include all the beauties of 
the plant. The corymb, long before it is developed, is enclosed 
within a scaly bud, if I may call it, six inches long and nearly 
four inches in diameter, very much resembling a pine-cone or 
the flower-head of some South African Proteaceous plant ; and 
the large deciduous scales are richly coloured too, almost white 
below, deep rose in the centre, and tipped with green. Some- 
what similar but smaller scale-buds envelop the infant foliage, 
which, too, is red when it first bursts forth. Such a Rhodo- 
dendron well merits the name of the late Mr Nuttall, given to 
it by its discoverer, Mr Booth; and we know that but a little 
before his lamented death, one of the last sources of pleasure he 
derived from the vegetable creation, which he had so long and 
so successfully studied, was the information of his namesake 
having for the first time flowered (at Kew), and the sight of the 
large drawing above referred to.”’ 
Mr Millais tells us that R. Nuttallii is seldom grown out of 
doors even in Cornwall; there it is sometimes planted against 
