314 BALFOUR—NEW SPECIES OF RHODODENDRON. 
Cultivated species of the foregoing are :—Rh. chryseum, Rh. 
lapponicum, Rh. parvifolium. 
SUB-SERIES F, 
Shrubs with very small, thick, rounded, even orbicular, leaves. 
Upper-leaf surface dark green, with withered contiguous scales 
amber-coloured shining. Under-leaf scales contiguous, some- 
times bicolour and punctulate. Inflorescence 1-flowered. Corolla 
elepidote. Style glabrous. 
The species 
Rh. Edgarianum, Rehd. et Wils., 
Rh. nivale, Hook. f., 
Rh. ramosissimum, Franch., 
are perhaps allied species within the Lapponicum series. I 
confess, however, that I do not know much of either Rh. Edgari- 
anum or Rh. ramosissimum, and grouping them as I do is yielding 
to the consideration that they seem more like in leaf form to one 
another than to other species in the Lapponicum series, and it is 
convenient for practical identification so to arrange them. We 
have only two small specimens of the former in the Edinburgh 
Herbarium under Wilson No. 1319, and none of the latter. 
Rh. nivale is a dwarf, prostrate, carpet shrub only a few inches 
high, the others are small bushes. All three species have very 
small leaves, rounded or approaching the orbicular, with con- 
tiguous amber coloured scales above, some of them becoming 
quite brown. Beneath the scales are also contiguous in Rh. 
Edgarianum and Rh. ramosissimum, rufous not punctulate or 
sometimes a portion remains greenish ; in RA. nivale the majority 
are pale fulvous brown whilst the others are very dark brown, 
and if there are very few the aspect of the surface is somewhat 
punctulate. Solitary terminal flowers are in all of them, and the 
corolla is elepidote rose and rose purple to purple. The form of 
the corolla in Rh. Edgartanum and Rh. nivale,in which only I have 
seen it, seems to argue against placing them together, for in 
Rh. nivale it has a short cylindric tube with a close villous throat 
annulus, but is funnel shaped, with a pubescent throat in Rh. 
Edgarianum. Taking Franchet’s description of Rh. ramo- 
sissimum, “‘ corolla fauce pilis destituta poculiformis,”’ we have 
a suggestion of a very different corolla. I have not had oppor- 
tunity of dissecting a flower of true Rh. ramosissimum as described 
by Franchet, but I have examined one from Wilson’s plant No. 
1319, ascribed to Rh. ramosissimum, Franch. In it there is 
quite a long (for the Lapponicum group) tube villous at the © 
throat. Then Rehder and Wilson say purple for colour not rose 
as Franchet gives it, and further their plant is tall, Franchet’s 
