THE AZALEAS OF THE OLD WORLD 



INTRODUCTION 



Botanists may hold different views on the classification of 

 the subdivisions of the large genus Rhododendron, but garden- 

 ers and lovers of plants in general have no difficulty in recog- 

 nizing Azaleas as distinct from other groups of the genus. It 

 is in the popular rather than in the strictly technical sense that 

 the title of "Azaleas of the Old World" is applied here. These 

 plants with few exceptions are sun-loving; and their wide popu- 

 larity among the peoples of the Orient, of America, of Europe 

 and Australia is due largely to the brilliancy of their flowers, 

 their floriferousness and the ease with which many of them can 

 be cultivated. In the Orient they have been favorite garden 

 flowers from very early times and in the Occident for more than 

 a century some have been familiar and valued greenhouse plants, 

 and in recent years it has been found that several are more 

 hardy than they were generally supposed to be. In the Arnold 

 Arboretum such hardy kinds as R. obtusum var. Kaempferi and 

 R. japonicum are among the most satisfactory and most beau- 

 tiful of Asiatic plants. Farther south and in California the old 

 Azalea amoena and A. ledifolia and the newer "Hinodegiri" are 

 much grown in gardens. Others are less known, but I believe that 

 in the near future both in increased variety and in quantity 

 Azaleas will have a much more important place in gardens. In 

 certain groups the hybridists in Europe have wrought wonder- 

 ful results, and the field is still full of promise. In Japan, in the 

 city of Kurume, selection and raising from seed has been in 

 progress among a single group for a century, and these plants are 

 now beginning to find their way into the Occident. With these 

 facts in view the need for a critical survey of the species and 

 forms seems necessary. Through confusion with other species 

 and for lack of accurate names many good plants have become 

 lost from our gardens, and others for the same reason have not 

 been introduced. During my travels in China I greatly admired 



l 



