44 BALFOUR—NEW SPECIES OF RHODODENDRON. 
mucronulate or not about 2 cm. long and 8 mm. or more broad 
softly pubescent with adpressed white hairs rufescent around 
the mucro; bracteoles filiform about 5 mm. long softly pilose with 
adpressed hairs ; pedicels erect strict about 2 cm. long expand- 
ing below the calyx, densely tomentose with white or reddening 
woolly hairs, eglandular. Calyx small fleshy about 2-3 mm. 
long outside floccose-tomentose, margin of cup 5-lobed ; lobes red 
concave rounded or broadly triangular floccose, margin ciliate. 
Corolla tubular-campanulate rose with a very few posterior 
crimson spots, about 3.7 cm. long fleshy at base and 5-gibbous 
with faint imperfect interpetaline septa, glabrous outside, puber- 
ulous inside, 5-lobed ; lobes large rounded about 1.4 cm. long 
and 2 cm. broad emarginate and crenulate. Stamens Io unequal 
shorter than corolla, longest about 2.2-2.4 cm. long with anther 
2 mm. long, shortest about 1.4-1.6 cm. long with anther about 
1.5mm. long; filaments expanded downwards densely puberulous 
from the base over a small area. Disk green more or less puber- 
ulous. Gynaeceum about 2.7cm. long longer than longest stamens 
shorter than corolla ; ovary ovoid grooved truncate 3.5 mm. long 
entirely covered by a pinkish tomentose indumentum of long 
erectly-branched hairs, eglandular ; style white glabrous slightly 
expanded below the lobulate lipped discoid stigma. 
sas Libet: Tsarong. On Ka-gwr-pw, Mekong-Salween 
divide. Lat. 28° 25’ N. Alt. 14,000 ft. Open stony slopes 
and ledges of cliffs. Shrub of 2-2} ft. Flowers soft rose with 
a few crimson markings. G. Forrest. No. 14,501. July 1917. 
W.N.-W.-Yunnan. Mekong-Salween divide. Lat. 28° 10’ N. 
Alt. 13,000 ft. On open pasture. Shrub of 2-3 ft. Flowers 
deep soft rose with a few crimson markings. G. Forrest. Nos. 
14,508, 14,508A. July 1917. 
ne of the most charming amongst the many Rhododendrons 
discovered by Forrest in the home of the genus in the highlands 
of the Mekong-Salween divide on the borders of S.E. Tibet and 
Yunnan. It is of atype of Rhododendron which seems to prevail 
in the area and of which the lovely Rh. sanguineum, Franch., 
Rh. Forrestii, Balf. f., and their allies—and now this Rh. comis- 
teum, leading to the Roxieanum series—are typical 
Rh. comisteum suggests at sight affinity with four species 
to which special reference is made elsewhere in these pages— 
Rh. Forrestii, Rh. sanguineum, Rh. haematodes, Franch., and 
Rh. Roxieanum, G. Forrest 
It is not a creeper, and has a truss with more flowers, ‘al 
by these characters differs from Rh. Forrestii and its immediate 
allies, but the fashion in which the flower-pedicels stand up 
within a nest of the ascending yellow inner bracts is strongly 
reminiscent of Rh. Forrestit. 
