NEW SERIES VOL. I 
NO. 6 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAMAICA PLAIN, MASS. MAY 31, 1915 
American Azaleas. No other plants add more to the beauty of moun- 
tain slopes and forest glades in eastern North America than Azaleas, 
which are more abundant and more varied in the color of their flowers 
in the Appalachian region than in any other part of the world. Of 
the ten species found in the eastern United States seven are estab- 
lished in the Arboretum, and the others from the extreme south, al- 
though in the Arboretum nurseries, are too young to show their abil- 
ity to withstand the rigors of the New England climate. All Azaleas 
are now called Rhododendrons. The first species to bloom, R. Vaseyi, 
begins to flower the beginning of May, and the flowers of the last, R. 
viscosum, can be found as late as the middle of July. The Azalea 
season is therefore a long one. R. Vaseyi is a tall shrub with slender 
stems and of open irregular habit; in its home in a few isolated moun- 
tain valleys in South Carolina it sometimes grows to the height of 
fifteen feet. The flowers are produced before the leaves appear, in 
small compact clusters, and are pure pink in color, plants with white 
flowers occasionally appearing. With R. Vaseyi the Rhodora (R. cana- 
dense) blooms. This is a well known dwarf shrub often covering in 
the north large areas of swampy land with a sheet of bloom. The 
small flowers, however, are of a rather unattractive rose-purple color. 
Naturally the Rhodora grows from Newfoundland to Pennsylvania and 
New Jersey. The next to bloom are R. canescens and R. nudiflorum, 
and although the two sometimes grow together the former is a north- 
ern and the latter a more southern plant, and is especially common in 
the Gulf States from eastern Florida to eastern Texas. The rosy pink 
flowers of these plants open before or with the unfolding of the leaves, 
and in early spring fill the woods with their beauty and fragrance. 
