290 BALFOUR—NEW SPECIES OF RHODODENDRON. 
anthopogon, D. Don, Sir Joseph Hooker says: * “ Nothing can 
exceed the beauty of its flowers, whether we consider the ex- 
quisitely tender, membranaceous, translucent texture of the 
corolla, with its delicate nervation, or the rich blush of the 
first opening blossoms, which insensibly passes into snowy 
white, then faintly tinged with sulphur—all colours seen on 
one and the same plant.” Hooker quotes the Nepal and 
Kumaon stations of Wallich’s Catalogue, and adds that of 
Sikkim Himalaya. Hooker’s account of the flower colour 
brings us back to the Gossain Than plant of the original de- 
scription of Rh. anthopogon, D. Don. Doubtless, since Hooker's 
exploration, seeds of the Sikkim plant have reached Britain 
frequently. Certain it is that we have in cultivation nowadays 
plants which in their flower colour show the succession of 
changes observed by Sir Joseph Hooker. But the faint 
sulphur-yellow tint acquired by the fading white is never like 
the yellow of the flower of the plant which shows yellow from 
the outset. Hooker’s dried specimens from Sikkim have not got 
persistent foliage-bud scale-leaves, differing thus markedly from 
all the N.W. Himalayan plants. Of Sikkim dried specimens 
in the Edinburgh Herbarium in addition to the Hookerian one, 
are :—Jongri (T. Anders., No. 767); Yangpoong (Watt, No. 
5447); Singaleelah (Watt, No. 5217, flowers lemon green) ; 
Ritampoo (Watt, No. 5284, flowers fresh pink; 5293, flowers 
lemon white, 5418). Observe that Sir.George Watt confirms 
Hooker’s account of variation in flower colour. In no one of 
the Sikkim plants are there persistent foliage-bud scale-leaves. 
I may add also that Hamilton’s No. 1083 from the Snow Mountain 
in Nepal is also without persistent foliage-bud scale-leaves— 
about its flower colour there is no information. 
I am led by the facts to believe :— 
(a) This Sikkim plant to which Hooker refers is the same 
as the Nepal one originally described as Rh. antho- 
pogon, D. Don. Characters of it are: 
1. The flower colour is pink to white, sometimes on 
fading becoming slightly sulphur-coloured, but it 
is not from the beginning dark yellow ; 
2. There are never persistent foliage-bud scale-leaves 
upon it. 
(0) The N.W. Himalayan plant is different. It is not the 
original Rh. anthopogon, D. Don, but is the plant of 
which George Don says the introduction took place 
in 1820, and to which he adjusted his description 
of Rh. anthopogon in 1834, ignoring the Nepalese 
* Hook. f., The Rhododendrons of Sikkim (1849), Conspect. 7. See also 
Hook. f. in Journ. Roy. Hort. Soc. Lond. vii (1852), 104. 
