I4. HUTCHINSON—THE MADDENI SERIES OF RHODODENDRON. 
podium clavatum and a Selaginella, with Marchantia, retain so 
constant a supply of moisture that the plants now flourish and 
flower in perfection.”’ 
R. formosum, Wall. 
Rhododendron formosum was first described by Wallich in 
1832 (Plantae Asiaticae Rariores, vol. iii. p.. 3, t. 207) from 
specimens communicated to him by a Mr Smith in the year 
1815. Wallich says the specimen came from “ the mountains 
bordering on the province of Sylhet by the late Mr Smith.” On 
the back of the original Wallichian drawing in the Kew collec- 
tion, marked as having been painted by “ Royle, Carey & others,” 
there is a pencil note saying the plant figured was from the 
Khasia Hills. In the first volume of Wallich’s publication we 
learn from the preface that Mr R. Smith was “an inhabitant 
of Sylhet,’ and no doubt his excursions carried him into the 
Khasia Hills to the North-West. I have not found a specimen 
of R. formosum in Wallich’s herbariumat Kew. Buta Griffithian 
specimen (Kew Distrib. No. 3506 partly) corresponds very 
closely indeed to the drawing, and might be regarded as a suitable 
topotype. This was collected by Griffith on the gth November, 
1835 near a torrent on the road between Moflong and Myrung, 
Khasia Hills. It is very nearly devoid of the long slender hairs 
on the petioles and leaf margins which are often so characteristic 
a feature of R. formosum in cultivation. But there are a few 
on the petioles of Griffith’s specimen and some on the margin 
of the very young leaves. Wallich’s description makes no 
mention of these cilia, nor does he show them in his excellent 
figure. But he no doubt described an entirely epilose mature 
condition, which is represented by another of Griffith’s specimens 
not localised or dated but bearing the same Kew distribution 
number (3506). I am convinced that the entire. absence of 
cilia from the petiole and leaf margins is not to be relied on 
as a mark of specific distinction in this particular instance. 
Neither is Wallich’s description of the ovary as villous of much 
importance; he very probably saw the ovary through the 
densely pubescent filaments and thought it was villous, when 
in reality it is only densely lepidote. In the picture there is 
no indication of its being hairy. Yet another discrepancy is 
the fact that he described the style as glabrous, whereas it is 
rather minutely lepidote in the lower part. The importance 
of close observance of these fundamental specific characters 
was no doubt in those early days not realised. 
The plant described and figured as R. Gibsoni by Paxton 
in his Magazine of Botany, viii. p. 217, is in my opinion not 
