128 BALFOUR—NEW SPECIES OF RHODODENDRON, 
case also in Rh. uvarifolium we do not know, because specimens 
of young shoots of this species have not yet come to Europe. 
The fruit of Rh. niphargum is of the narrow curved type of 
capsule, and in the absence of direct evidence I think we may 
conclude from the form of the ovary that the same form marks 
the fruit of Rh. uvarifolium. My reference to Rh. niveum and 
Rh. floribundum must not be interpreted as necessarily meaning 
that these species are of the immediate alliance of the one I am 
speaking of. Passing observation might suggest such a relation- 
ship, but analysis brings out characters which in the present 
state of our appreciation of phyletic marks in the genus seem 
to question a connection, for the leaf-indumentum of Rh. niveum 
as well as of Rh. floribundum is unistrate, composed of hairs 
branching somewhat loosely from the base upwards—of different 
shape in the two species—and constituting a somewhat woolly 
surface, the pedicels are woolly, as is the small calyx, the staminal 
filaments are glabrous, the ovary is coated with fasciated long 
erect white hairs in Rh. niveum, with solitary long pointed 
white stiff hairs in Rh. floribundum, and then the capsule is a 
short straight stout one. At the same time I may note that the 
Western Szechwan Rh. Hunnewellianum, Rehd. et Wilson has 
the same general form of elongated leaf (only smaller), with 
snow-white indumentum constructed like that of our two 
species—Rh. niphargum and Rh. uvarifolium—but the calyx is 
glandular and pubescent, the widely campanulate 5-lobed corolla 
is glandular outside, the 10 staminal filaments are puberulous 
and glandular, the ovary densely covered with fasciate hairs, 
the style glandular and pubescent at the base. Apart from the 
character of the glands, which nowhere shows in any of the 
species previously mentioned, Rh. Hunnewellianum seems to be 
a form somewhere intermediate to Rh. niveum (its ovarian 
covering taking it to this species rather than to Rh. floribundum) 
and Rh. niphargum and its fellows. Neither Rh. niveum and 
Rh. floribundum nor Rh. uvarifolium and Rh. niphargum show 
any glands, and this eglandulose character serves as a definite 
diagnostic mark from the Himalayan Rh. arboreum, Wall. and 
Yunnan Rh. Delavayt, Franch., two species which by their bullate 
leaves with pale-coloured indumentum and the small compact 
trussed flowers, the short tomentose pedicels, the small more 
or less floccose calyx, 5-lobed tubular-campanulate corolla, 10 
stamens with glabrous filaments, ovary tomentosely covered 
with fasciate hairs, glabrous style, short stout thick capsule 
take us towards Rh. niveum and Rh. floribundum. 
Seedlings of Rh. niphargum have been raised from Forrest’s 
seeds and are very different from the mature plant. They show 
not a trace of the white indumentum even when three years 
