60 THE AZALEAS OF THE OLD WORLD 



Musashi, Yokohama, cultivated, December 22, 1914, E. H. Wilson 

 (No. 7873); same locality, May 15, 1918, E. H. Wilson. 



Cultivated: Hort. Holm Lea, Brookline, Mass., April 15, 1915; 

 Hort. Kew, 1912, type of Bot. Mag. t. 8478. 



This is a laxly branched shrub from 1 to 2 m. high and has relatively stout 

 branches which are clothed in their first year with appressed, flattened, strigose, gray- 

 brown hairs which gradually disappear. The leaves are shining, coriaceous, nearly 

 glabrous except on the veins at maturity, persistent; those formed in the spring 

 are lanceolate to elliptic-lanceolate, from 4 to 10 cm. long and from 2 to 3.5 cm. 

 broad, acute or obtuse and mucronate at the apex, the base broadly cuneate, the 

 margin slightly recurved ciliate and sub-crenulate, the principal veins impressed 

 above and prominently raised on the under surface; the summer leaves are ob- 

 lanceolate, smaller and more coriaceous than the spring leaves and subacute or 

 rounded at the apex, which is mucronulate; when young the leaves have appressed, 

 straight gray-brown hairs more especially on the nerves and an occasional sessile 

 gland on the under-side; at maturity they are very sparsely pubescent except on 

 primary and secondary nerves; the petiole is stout, flattened, somewhat appressed 

 to the shoot, and is clothed with pubescence similar to that on the shoots and leaf 

 veins. The winter-buds are ovoid, acute, clothed with rufous, appressed straight 

 hairs; the inner bud-scales cinnamon-brown, ciliate, viscid on inner surface and re- 

 main on the base of the pedicels of the expanded flowers. The flowers are borne in 

 terminal clusters from 2 to 6 in each. The calyx is green, ample, the lobes usually 

 oval and rounded, about 6 mm. long and 5 mm. broad, sometimes one and occasion- 

 ally all the calyx-lobes lance-shape and 1.2 cm. or more long, acuminate, ciliate and 

 glandular, and covered with appressed, straight, gray hairs. The corolla is rose-red 

 to vivid scarlet, broad-funnel-shape about 6 cm. wide, lobed nearly to the middle; 

 stamens 10, included, overtopped by style. The fruit is erect, ovoid, from 1 to 

 1.2 cm. long, sparsely hairy, and is subtended by persistent calyx-lobes. 



This species is endemic in the Liukiu Islands, where it is confined to the middle, 

 or Okinawa, group of islands and to Takuno-shima, the most southern of the north- 

 ern, or Oshima, group. It grows among shrubs, coarse grasses and Pinus luchuensis 

 Mayr, and when in bloom is very conspicuous. It is a common plant in gardens 

 round Kagoshima in south Japan, having beeri long ago introduced from Liukiu. 

 From Kagoshima it has been taken to Nagasaki and north as far as Tokyo, but it 

 is only in the warmer parts of south Japan that it can be described as a common 

 garden plant. The leaves, flowers and fruit are larger than those of other species 

 of the group; the leaves are also more persistent and more coriaceous. The flowers 

 are normally of an intense scarlet but they vary to rose-red. The calyx-lobes are 

 often very unequal in size on the same flower or flower-cluster and they vary too 

 in degree of pubescence. In habit it is more vigorous but less compact than that 

 of other species of the group. Specimens in Herb. Kew and Herb. Gray labelled 

 R. Sieboldii var. elliplicum ex Herb. Lugd.-Bat., 1863, would appear to belong here 

 though the flowers are abnormally small for the species. The leaves, bud-scales, 

 calyx and number of stamens agree and it may be that the specimens are from a 

 plant flowering out of season or under abnormal conditions. 



Maximowicz, Miquel and Makino refer to it as the " Chinese Azalea " but there 

 does not appear to be any authority for the statement since the plant itself is un- 

 known in China. To-day in Japan generally it is known as the Liukiu (Riukiu) 

 Azalea, but round Kurume in Kyushu it is called "Hiwoge-yodogawa." Maximo- 

 wicz does not appear to have properly known this species and has confused Wright's 

 Tokuno-shima specimen and others with his R. ledifolium /3. purpureum yet he 



