ENUMERATION OF THE SPECIES 129 



extends from southern Pennsylvania (Somerset County), through West Virginia 

 (Pocahontas County), western North Carolina (Ashe, Mitchell and Buncombe 

 Counties), northwestern South Carolina (Spartanburg County) to northeastern 

 Georgia (Rabun County) . The type locality is the Blue Ridge Mountains in North 

 Carolina. In most Floras the range of the species is given as extending to southern 

 New York but I have not seen a single specimen in support of this statement which 

 is apparently based on "Azalea erecta foliis ovatis integris alternis flore luteo piloso 

 praecoci" enumerated by Cadwallader Colden in his Plantae Coldenghamiae (in 

 Act. Soc. Sci. Upsala, IV. 93 [1749]). This plant has not been found again by 

 any botanist in the state of New York; the report by Dr. Barnhart in 1895 (in 

 Bull. Torr. Boi. Club, XXII. 282) that he discovered it in an apparently native 

 state near Tarrytown was based on a single shrub which belonged to a planta- 

 tion in a private estate, a fact Dr. Barnhart found out on the occasion of a later 

 visit to the locality, as he himself has told me. Rhododendron calendulaceum is 

 usually found growing scattered in open woods on mountain sides as undergrowth 

 and along the banks of watercourses in the mountains. With its brilliant flowers 

 ranging from yellow to scarlet it enlivens the mountain woods in early summer, 

 and as well in its natural habitat as in the garden it must be considered one of the 

 most gorgeous of American shrubs. 



Rhododendron calendulaceum was first mentioned by Cadwallader Colden in 

 1749 from southern New York, as already stated, and his account was referred by 

 Linnaeus to his Azalea lutea, which was chiefly based on material belonging to the 

 species we now call Rhododendron nudifiorum. It was also discovered in northern 

 Georgia at the confluence of the Savannah and Broad River, the most southern 

 point of the range of the species, in 1774 by William Bartram, who describes its 

 beauty in glowing terms {Travels, I. 322 [1790]); he called it "Flame Azalea" and 

 named it incidentally Azalea flammea in his book, but without giving a technical 

 description. The elder Michaux collected it on the Blue Ridge Mountain in 

 North Carolina on May 11, 1795, and called it Azalea lutea in his Journal. 



When iJ. calendulaceum was first introduced into cultivation cannot be stated 

 with certainty. If the plant figured as Azalea aurantiaca by Dietrich in 1803 and 

 said to have been procured from England belongs to our species, it must have 

 been sent to England before 1800. It is certain, however, that the yellow form 

 was growing in the nurseries of J. Fraser and of Loddiges and Sons in 1812, as 

 stated by Sims in Botanical Magazine under tab. 1721. Their plants were received 

 from John Lyon, who brought over a large shipment of American plants in 1806. 



The nomenclature of the species is somewhat involved and the name Azalea 

 lutea which Linnaeus gave in 1753 to an American species incompletely known to 

 him and based on citations belonging to three different species, namely R. nudi- 

 fiorum, R. canescens and R. calendulaceum, has been recently taken up by several 

 American botanists for our species. In the second edition of his Species plan- 

 tarum, however, he changed the name to A. nudiflora, but retained the descrip- 

 tions and the citations unchanged, augmented only by references to Kalm and 

 Duhamel; he had then in his possession specimens collected by Kalm and repre- 

 senting jR. nudifiorum which apparently induced him to change the name, noticing 

 that the color of the flowers was not yellow. As both names Azalea lutea and A. 

 nudiflora are based on the same citations and on the same description, they cannot 

 be used for different plants, as has been done by Britton and by Small, and as they 

 are chiefly based on R. nudifiorum and R. canescens, A . lutea cannot be taken up 

 for our species, as Blake has shown in Rhodora. The next oldest name A. flammea 

 Bartram being a nomen nudum, A. calendulacea becomes the correct name for the 

 species, after excluding A. aurantiaca Dietr. for the reasons given in the footnote 

 on page 128. 



