FLOWERING TREES AND SHRUBS 



419 



Name. 



Country or 



Origin and 



Natural Order. 



Colour 



AND 



Season. 



General Remarks. 



Rhododendron 

 Hardy Hybrid 



Ericaceae 



pean and Asiatic ponticum. 

 This hybridising has been 

 progressing for half a century 

 or more, and the parentage 

 is plainly seen in the off- 

 spring. Thus where R. 

 arboreum asserts itself most 

 strongly we find rich red 

 flowers and leaves with a 

 silvery under-surface. Where 

 R. catawbiense is most in 

 evidence the leaves are large 

 and handsome, deep green, 

 and softer to the touch than R. 

 arboreum, while the clusters 

 are often of great size, the 

 flowers prettily spotted, and 

 the plants of exceptionally 

 good habit. For very cold 

 districts the catawbiense hy- 

 brids are the best, being 

 hardier than the others. The 

 flowers of many of the earliest 

 of the R. catawbiense hybrids 

 are of lilac or purple colour- 

 ing. The influence of R. 

 caucasicum is most plainly 

 shown in the rose, white, 

 and heavily spotted varieties, 

 whilst it also imparts some 

 of its sturdy habit to its pro- 

 geny. R. ponticum shares 

 with R. catawbiense the 

 honour of producing many 

 of the best lilacs and purples, 

 but through so much inter- 

 crossing it is diflicult to trace 

 the influence of any particular 

 species in many of the newer 

 hybrids. In this group 

 raisers are fastidious, re- 

 garding the shape of the in- 

 floresence as of first import- 

 ance, that is, a conical truss 

 of symmetrical outline, the 

 flowers on short stalks and 

 held firmly in the truss. In 

 the Rhododendron dell at 

 Kew many of these hybrids 

 are to be seen, and in a 

 number of the older ones it 

 is not difficult to trace the 

 influence of the various 

 species mentioned. Some 

 of those which show much 

 of the catawbiense character 

 are album elegans, white with 

 yellow spots, delicatissimum, 

 blush, everestianum, lilac with 

 darker spots, fastuosum fl. pi. , 

 double lilac, and purpureura 



