I^Jjobotrenbron ^ocietp ^oteg. 
Gardeners’ Chronicle, May 1th, 1881. 
Any one who studies the genus Rhododendron will very soon find a foliar 
distinction which will strike him forcibly. He will learn to divide his species 
into those with scaly leaves, and those with leaves without scales. 
There is perhaps also an intermediate class, containing those which bear 
scales on the under, but not on the upper surface of the leaf. The student will 
find that geographically these classes can be only roughly divided. They are 
united in the Himalayas on perhaps a fair equality. The scaly type prevails in 
the Malayan region, the scaleless in America, where, however, R. punctatum and 
others of the different type are found. The tropical and alpine species are mostly 
scaly, the temperate mostly scaleless. The arborescent Rhododendrons are, I 
believe, scaleless, while the shrubby ones, and the dwarfs, and the epiphytes are 
very often scaly. As to the annually deciduous species they are, I think, all 
scaleless. Although the nature of these scales is by no means the same, yet they 
present a tolerable uniformity, and afford certainly a very valid character, all 
the more because they have a tendency to spread to the flower-stalk, the calyx, 
and even the corolla. 
Most interesting to the naturalist, they are useful to the hybridiser, for they 
may reveal the tale of a successful cross in the first development of the plumule 
of a seedling. For the present it must suffice to say that these scales differ 
from the hairs, tomentum, glands, and bristles which beset the leaves of so many 
Rhododendrons at various stages of growth, and which last give so singular an 
appearance to R. barbatum and R. Champion.®. They furnish, moreover, an 
excellent illustration of the desirability of examining younger leaves and younger 
plants than are often found in a herbarium, for the older leaves and the older 
plants are apt to shed their scales in a misleading way, as is very accurately 
pointed out by Beccari in his Malesia. I venture to think, for instance, 
that R. Nuttallii would not have been excluded from Maximowicz’s 
“ lepidota ” had the young, and indeed, the old leaves of small seedling plants 
been examined, as I am now examining them, under a lens, and the profusions 
of beautiful crimson, brown and green scales observed on the upper surface of 
the leaf, as well as underneath (the Botanical Magazine says the leaves 
“ are much paler beneath, and there partially covered with numerous minute 
circular peltate resinous scales ”) been seen. If embryology is important, so 
is the observation of the condition of young plants and young leaves, and the 
greenhouse may well supplement the herbarium ; but awaiting the forthcoming 
number of the Flora of British India, I will not venture to say more. 
R. Edgeworthii, which I wish to discuss with your readers, must plead my 
excuse for this long introduction. 
In no botanical description have I found any indication that it belonged to 
the scaly type of Rhododendron, as from its breeding affinities was clearly to be 
Indumentum. 
77 
