HYBRID INTERMIXTURES. 
361 
beautiful in the extreme, and quite hardy enough to bear 
our winters, though more impatient of wet than the Pontic 
and American plants, more fragile, and from its inheriting 
the early habits of arboreum, very obnoxious to spring frosts. 
A profusion of seedlings, now of large size and flowering, 
were reared at Hio-hclere from the American blush-coloured 
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arborescent Rhododendron, probably the maximum v. pur- 
pureum altissimum of Pursh, which is more like to Ponti- 
cum than to maximum, and requires a specific name (I 
suggest Arborescens), impregnated by the scarlet arboreum 
of Nepal, and this cross will probably be of great stature and 
magnificence. The plants of that American species or local 
variety have broad oval leaves. I have another permanent 
variety of American Rhododendron raised from seed gathered 
by Fraser from a tree in Pennsylvania, which he stated to 
have been the largest he ever saw r , and capable of being 
sawed into large planks. It has the leaf narrower than Pon- 
ticum, and unlike any of the three kinds which are ranged 
under the name maximum. I should include it under the 
name arborescens. The white Nepal arboreum, with a fer- 
ruginous underside to the leaf, and the beautiful but still rare 
campanulatum, are hardier than the red arboreum ; and Dr. 
Wallich saw in one situation the red growing at a much 
higher elevation than it usually occupies, from which hardier 
variety he has given us hopes of obtaining seed ; and from 
these sources, as well as from the bristly Rhododendron bar- 
batum, when it shall flower with us, and the beautiful Rho- 
dodendron venustum of Silhet, which we hope soon to pos- 
sess, our means of increasing the varieties of this desirable 
family will be multiplied. It is to be hoped that the seed- 
lings which I have raised from the white Rh. maximum by 
arboreum, will not move so early in the spring and will suit 
our variable climate better. An intermixture between the 
white arboreum and the yellow or orange Azaleas will yield 
a plant of great beauty. The cross between Arboreum and 
Caucasicum has flowered and been duly appreciated. The 
mule Altaclarae has been crossed again with a large red 
Azalea at Highclere, and Azalea Sinensis has yielded a most 
beautiful intermixture with the same red Azalea. The finest 
flowered cross I have seen is one that I possess between Ar- 
boreum and Catawbiense, and having forced this plant more 
than one season I have obtained seed from it, no other Rho- 
dodendron having been in flower at that time. The result is 
