Cfje i^toboijenbron ^ocictp Motti. 
RHODODENDRON NOTES FOR 1917. 
Contributed by J. C. Williams. 
The effect of the frost of this last winter on the Rhododendron buds was 
irregular and unusual. I only give details of those well-known kinds which are 
uncertain even in a good winter. R. Aucklandii lost a great many buds and 
most of the remaining buds were injured in the terminal pips of the truss; no 
plant was in any way injured. 
R. Maddenii never flowered better and never lost so few buds, no flower 
which I noticed had any mark of the frost on it. 
The Edgeworthii, Bullatum lot in a big group together, on rather high 
ground, were never so good, and were free from all injury, some of them had 
flowers over six inches across in the case of each kind. 
Wilson’s STAMINEUM, No. 758, of 1900, flowered weU and was quite uninjured. 
Forrest’s 5530, (R. stenaulum of this section), had a very bad time and 
were nearly wiped out, and his 7673 proved even softer, though some are alive. 
R. Lindleyi and R. Dalhousi^ were quite uninjured. 
R. Nuttallii, on a wall and well sheltered, is I think dead. 
Of the softer hybrids Aucklandii x blood-red arboreum, now sixteen years 
old, had almost every flower cut out by the frost or half frozen. Aucklandii x 
a white arboreum in the same place as the last named plant was much as usual. 
Nearly all the flowers open when the frost came were injured excepting 
R. Fargesii and R. barbatum, they held on for a long while. Fargesii is 
always remarkable in this respect. 
The following Rhododendrons, not very well known, have flowered here 
recently, some this year and some before. 
The term hardy means that they are hardy in the Werrington Garden, near 
Launceston, which has a very cold winter nearly always, and I should not think 
of planting the softer Indians there, whilst seedlings of crassum, sinogrande, 
HABROTRiCHUM and OVATUM are all killed off in an average winter. 
R. CUNEATUM —10059—10071—10435. This is rather like an evergreen form 
of R. MUCRONULATUM, though not if you come close to it, it may have nice forms 
of lavender-lilac flower amongst the seedlings, though the two plants I have 
seen in flower were not remarkable, but after the mistakes some of us have made 
about the newer species when first flowering, particularly with Wilson’s 
Davidsonianum, I should not go very quickly to a decision. It is quite hardy 
I believe. 
Forrest’s 6777. sulfureum microforme, once called R. brachyanthum, 
has a pretty small campanulate yellow flower, it seems to dislike a hot place and 
needs a low bank to show it well. It is hardy. 
R. DECORUM of Forrest has given us one very beautiful rose-pink form, 
and this colour seems to be latent in all the Fortunei section, in Wilson’s 
there are several very good ones of this colour, and the hybrids raised by 
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