66 THE AZALEAS OF THE OLD WORLD 



This Korean Azalea is usually a compact densely branched shrub from a few 

 incKj; to a metre high, but in shaded places it may be as much as two metres tall 

 and rather loosely branched; on wind-swept slopes and on the tops of rocks it hugs 

 the ground and forms broad mats. The branches are twiggy and clothed with 

 appressed gray hairs which disappear the second year. No part of the plant is 

 glandular; the winter-buds are ovoid, more or less pointed and covered witi 

 appressed, gray-brown hairs. The leaves are quite or partially deciduous according 

 to climate and in the autumn are tinted from orange to crimson. The spring 

 leaves are membranous, oblanceolate to lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, from 3 to 

 8 cm. long and from 1 to 2 cm. broad, acute and mucronate at apex, with a narrow 

 wedge-shaped base; they are dark green and have impressed veins on the upper 

 surface, and are pallid below where the principal veins are prominent, ascending 

 and arching inward but not extending to the margins of the leaf; both surfaces 

 are clothed with straight appressed gray to shining brown hairs. The summer 

 leaves are thicker, narrowly oblong-lanceolate, from 0.4 to 1 cm. wide, attenuate 

 at the base; the margins are often obscurely crenate-serrate, and the upper surface 

 is glabrous at maturity except for a few, short appressed, white bristles. The 

 flowers are in clusters of two to several, and are remarkably fragrant, with a 

 corolla rose to rosy purple. The calyx is ample, green and clothed with pubes- 

 cence similar to that of the leaves, the lobes are lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, 

 from 5 to 10 mm. long, acute, obtuse or rounded. The pistil is exserted but the 

 stamens are included, 10 in number, with purple anthers. The fruit is erect, 

 ovoid, from 7 to 10 mm. long, clothed with strigose hairs and subtended by 

 the persistent calyx-lobes. This is the common Azalea of Korea from about the 

 latitude of Seoul (Keijyo), the capital city southward. It is partial to open country 

 and on grassy mountain-slopes and in thin Pine-woods it forms dense matlike 

 masses from a few inches to a yard high. On boulders in water-courses the growth 

 is low and dense but in thickets the plants are more loosely branched and often two 

 metres high. It grows from sea-level up to about 1600 m. altitude according to 

 latitude and in some places, like the foothills of Chiri-san, it is very abundant. 

 On Quelpaert it grows from sea-level to near the summit of Hallai-san and is 

 common on boulders in the water-courses and on the moorlands. On Poukhan- 

 san behind Keijyo from which it derives its specific name it is rare though 

 there are places not far from there where it is common. 



This Azalea was introduced to the Arnold Arboretum by Mr. J. G. Jack who 

 sent seeds from Poukhan-san in the autumn of 1905. Plants flowered for the first 

 time in May, 1914. It has proved perfectly hardy here, grows freely and flowers 

 profusely. The flowers are distinctly and pleasantly fragrant and the plant is a 

 decided acquisition to the list of hardy species of its section. 



Japanese botanists have recorded this plant from several places in Hondo, Japan, 

 and Komatsu (in Tokyo Bot. Mag. XXXII. [38] (1918) ) enumerates fourteen garden 

 forms. I have seen the Japanese material from wild plants referred to this species 

 in the herbarium of the Imperial Botanic Garden, Tokyo, but it is too fragmentary 

 to base a definite opinion upon. That from the Tokyo region has yellow anthers 

 and belongs to R. obtusum var. Kaempferi f. mikawanum Wils. It certainly has 

 nothing to do with R. yGdoense var. poukhanense. That from Bitchu province 

 collected by Z. Yoshino has purple anthers and the veins on the upper surface 

 are indistinctly impressed. It may represent Nakai's variety but the material is 

 too incomplete to judge by. 



Rhododendron Oldhamii Maximowicz in Mem. Acad. Sci. St. Piters- 

 bourg, s6r. 7, XVI. No. 9, 34 (Rhodod. As. Or.) (1870). — Masters in 

 Gard. Chron. n. ser. XVII. 524 (1882). — Hemsley in Jour. Linn. Soc. 



