70 THE AZALEAS OF THE OLD WORLD 



scales of the flower-buds are also glandular. The spring leaves are light green, 

 deciduous and rather thin in texture, they are lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate, from 

 3 to 6 cm. long and from 1 to 2.5 cm. wide, acute or obtuse, mucronulate, clothed 

 on both surfaces with soft, straight, appressed, gray to rufous hairs; the summer 

 leaves are dark green, numerous, persistent and sub-coriaceous, oblong-lanceolate 

 to oblanceolate-oblong, from 1 to 4 cm. long and from 0.6 to 1.2 cm. wide, obtuse 

 or rounded, mueronate, somewhat rugulose above, prominently veined on the 

 lower surface, their margins more or less recurved; both surfaces are clothed with 

 soft, straight, appressed, gray to rufous hairs, and often mixed with these are 

 spreading, glandular, gray hairs. The flowers are in clusters of one or more at 

 the end of the branch, fragrant, pure white; occasionally an odd branch may have 

 rose-colored flowers, or flowers striped with rose. The calyx is green and ample, 

 the calyx-lobes are erect, lance-shaped, about 1 cm. long, often somewhat erose 

 and more or less densely glandular-pubescent. The corolla is wide-funnel shape 

 from 4 to 5 cm. long and broad; the stamens are usually 10 (occasionally 8) aa 

 long as the corolla or nearly so, and are exceeded by the pistil which is slightly 

 exserted. The fruit is conic, with appressed setose hairs, and is shorter than the 

 persistent calyx-lobes which surround it. 



This Azalea is a favorite plant in Japan and has a place in almost every garden 

 more especially from Tokyo southward, but its wild prototype was discovered 

 only quite recently. 1 It is the " Jedogawa-tsutsuji with white flowers " mentioned 

 by Kaempfer (Amoen. Exot. 848 [1712]), and by Thunberg was included under his 

 Azalea indica as " Yedogawa Satsuke." It was cultivated in Java in the days 

 of Burmann and without doubt was brought there from Nagasaki, Japan, by Dutch 

 trading ships. In China it is grown in the gardens of the wealthy in many parts 

 of the Empire, but how it got there we do not know. According to Lindley (Bol. 

 Reg. X. t. 811 [1824]) it was first introduced into England to the nurseries of Mr. 

 Brookes at Ball's Pond through his collector Joseph Poole who sent it from China 

 in 1819. Like all introductions of this period it came, in all probability, either 

 from Canton or Macao. Probably there were other importations from China in 

 early times and during the last thirty years hundreds of thousands of plants have 

 been sent from Japan to America and Europe. Its fragrant, white flowers and 

 good constitution have made it a favorite and common plant in the greenhouses of 

 the west. In fairly recent years it has been found to be more hardy than was once 

 supposed, and it is now quite frequently seen as an outdoor garden shrub. I have 

 not been able to ascertain the exact date of its introduction into America, but 

 Hovey tells us that it was growing in the garden of J. P. Cushing, Belmont 

 Place, Watertown, Massachusetts, in February, 1838. It is scarcely hardy near 

 Boston but on Long Island, New York, and southward it is perfectly hardy. In 

 Japan it is known as the " Shiro-yodogawa," that is " White Yodogawa." 



I am familiar with this plant in the gardens of Japan and China as well as in those 

 of Europe and America and in addition to the material enumerated I have seen 

 the many old specimens preserved in Herb. Kew and Herb. Gray, which include 

 several sent from Java many years ago. Every specimen in herbaria that I have 

 seen is definitely stated to have come from cultivated plants. That it is an albino 

 form of some species has long been suspected and it is satisfactory to be able to 

 identify it at last. After an exhaustive study I am of the definite opinion that this 

 old favorite garden plant is a white-flowered form of a plant wild near the banks 

 of rivers on the island of Shikoku, which has lilac-purple flowers and to which 

 Makino (in Tokyo Bot. Mag. XXII. 55 (1908) has given the name R. ripense. 



1 Millais states that " Carles collected it on the Seoul mountains in Korea." 

 This is incorrect; the plant is R. yedoense var. poukhanense Nakai. 



