78 BALFOUR—NEW SPECIES OF RHODODENDRON. 
lat. 25° 40’ N., long. 100° E., whilst Rh. sanguinewm is a type 
of the Mekong-Salween divide in the extreme N.W. of Yunnan 
extending from Mount Sela in about lat. 28° N. to Ka-gwr-pw 
in about lat. 28° 35’ N. and around long, 98° E. 
In view of the shortness of Franchet’s diagnosis and the 
criticism of it introduced above it may be well, and conduce to 
a better understanding of likeness and difference, if I give here 
the following emended description of the species :— 
Rhododendron sanguineum Franch., in Journ. de Bot., xii 
(1898), 259. 
Small undershrub not 1 m. high, with thin straight short 
glabrous branches about 2.5 mm. in diameter when a year old 
bearing leaves in a rosette of 4-5 at the end of each year’s 
growth, the leaves persisting for about 2 years but not always, 
the older stems not clad with persistent scale-leaves of foliage- 
bud, the branches soon becoming grey-white and decorticating 
in thin flakes. Foliage-buds oblong narrowly oval ; outer scale- 
leaves deciduous as bud opens crustaceous with a rounded or 
oblong base and a prominent apiculus or short tail rising from 
a truncate summit, keeled, outside along the middle shortly 
floccosely tomentose densely so around the apiculus and the 
airs there brown, ciliate; inner scale-leaves ligulate-spathu- 
Beg narrow as much as 2 cm, long 4 mm. broad yellow with a 
brownish midrib membranous truncate or retuse at top with a 
short apiculus, glabrous outside, sericeous at top inside, floccose- 
tomentose around the apiculus, ciliate ; young leaves revolute 
in bud, floccose above, the hairs early deciduous. Leaves petio- 
late as much as 6 cm. long often less; lamina leathery obovate 
or oblong-obovate or oval or narrowly oblong as much as 5.5 
cm. long 2.5 cm. broad, rounded or obtuse at apex ending in a 
conspicuous hydathodal mucro, margin narrowly cartilaginous 
plane, base obtuse and slightly prolonged wing-like on the 
petiole ; upper surface dark green opaque glabrous but the 
midrib red-tinted groove showing some withered hairs ; primary 
veims some 10-12 on each side hardly visible or very slightly 
grooved, under surface grey-white with streaks of red marking 
the prominent midrib and primary veins, the surface covered 
with a thin skin of indumentum composed of shortly- 
stalked hairs which branch freely and their branches spreading 
outwards interweave to form a honeycombed somewhat scintil- 
lating surface but the hairs are not agglutinate, they form a 
canopy over the epidermis,—some shorter-stalked hairs amongst 
the shorter broader and more prostrate branches suggest a 
second stratum of hairs beneath the canopy but it is not well 
_ developed ; petiole red as much as 1 cm. long usually at 
