W^t i^tjobobenliron ^ocietp ^otesi 
can never be properly worked up ? Still winding up the grassy slope, where the 
Rhododendrons and Azaleas were ever and anon varied by a Palm, a crimson 
Maple, or clumps of Lilium giganteum, with last year’s flower-stalks towering 
aloft, we reached R. fulgens, in great beauty, not of blossom but of foliage, 
the young shoots brilliant with crimson bracts.* 
The plant was a picture of health, although no fine blossoms were visible, 
nor the curious plum-coloured capsules so characteristic of the species. 
For the former I was too late, for the latter doubtless too early. Alongside, 
to my utter horror, stood the blackened skeleton of what I had long hoped to see, 
that plant of R. Aucklandii, over trusses of which the editorial pen of this 
journal (May 18th, 1878), had indulged in unmeasured ecstasies. 
The classic plant seemed not absolutely dead, but blasted and black. Was 
it the frost ? Was it an untimely removal ? Was it lack of nourishment ? 
My host seemed in doubt. Who can describe our lamentations over the ruins, 
which I am to try, however imperfectly, to replace out of my home nursery ? A 
consolation was at hand. Hard by I spied the most charming little bush of 
R. CAMPYLOCARPUM I ever beheld. No wonder that Sir J. Hooker fell in love 
with the species ! About three feet high, I think, the bush was covered thick with 
its primrose bells, not quite so yellow as those I had seen in Edinburgh, but 
exquisitely lovely. This sight alone well rewarded me for my long journey, and 
I must impress upon my readers that this species seems to be exceptionally hardy. 
With me the young shoots, often tenderer than the blossoms, have resisted frosts 
before which those of R. Thomsonii, its nearest ally (the sheep browse on both 
on their native mountains), have succumbed. 
Still I must beware of falling into the common error of generalizing from an 
experience of only four or five plants of either species. I cannot too often repeat 
that seedlings from even the same batch of seed greatly vary in point of hardiness, 
and that different years affect different plants in an inscrutable manner. One is 
taken and another left, we scarcely know why. The moral of course is : “ Grow 
plenty of specimens, and plant them in different situations.” 
Two plants of R. Thomsonii were next examined, and various smaller ones of 
Sikkim and Bhotan species, but I saw no more in bloom. Mr. Boscawen has 
much valuable lore on the early history of Rhododendron culture in this country, 
and I dare say the garden at Lamorran will often furnish me with a fact or an 
illustration in a future paper, but I feel I must not now trespass longer. As we 
retraced our steps I was able to identify for my host a flowerless branch of 
R. Fortunei, obtained in the neighbourhood (which I hope next year to explore 
with him), and I was astonished to learn that R. formosum had weathered 
many winters in the open air. 
A word on this before I close. R. formosum is, be it observed, a native of 
comparatively low mountains in a hot climate (I am now hunting up in Griffith’s 
Itinerary and journals and elsewhere all I can find about it), and I have 
always assumed it to be a tender species.' It never rains, however, but it pours, 
♦ Not bracts but scales of the leaf bud.—I.B.B. 
85 
