iBltobobenbron ^ociet|> £lotti. 
R. BASILICUM has much Jarger leaves and more chambers in its larger fruit. 
Another species nearly allied to R. megaphyllum may yet have to be described. 
Forrest discovered it in 1918, on the Shweli-Salween divide, and Farrar also 
found it in 1919, on the Hpimaw Pass. Like R. megaphyllum in form and size 
of foliage, it has a grey under-leaf with indumentumi detersile at an early age. 
The material so far received does not suffice for precise determination. 
Rhododendron preptum, Bdl/. f. et Forrest. 
Of this species, one of Forrest’s most recent finds, Mr. J. C. Williams has 
only received as yet advance specimens by postal packet. Forrest discovered 
it in May, 1919, at an elevation of 11,000 feet, in bamboo and mixed scrub on 
the N’Maikha divide, in N.E. Upper Burm.a, and he writes of it as a shrub of 
6 to 8 feet with flowers probably yellowish-white or pale yellow crimsoned 
at base, but at the date of collection the flowers were almost gone. The specimens 
show a plant with small leaves 16 cm. long, 6 cm. broad, narrow for the series, 
palish green above and not much wrinkled, buff-coloured on the underside. 
The cup-hairs of the underleaf indumentum resemble somewhat those of R. 
arizelum, having stout stalks and a funnel-type of cup with walls composed of 
elongated cells, and ridged by bands of thicker-walled ones which diverge irregu¬ 
larly from the mouth of the cup as much-branched fringe-lobes. From the stalk 
as well as from the wall-ridges branch-hairs also proceed obscuring slightly 
the cup-mouth. The interlacing of the hair-branches gives a soft woolh^ aspect 
to the leaf-surface. There is no perfect truss of flowers on the specimens, but 
the individual flowers are small, the 8-lobed corolla only about 3 cm. long ; 
the 16 stamens with puberulous filaments are much shorter than tlie corolla, and 
the 12-13-chambered ovary is covered with a dense tomentum of shortly stalked 
branched hairs each hair resembling in its stem and branches a pollard willow. 
The position of R. preptum in the series is not definable at present. Perhaps 
R. ARIZELUM is the close.st ally, but the broad leaves dark rusty coloured below, 
larger corolla, stamens and style of that species distinguish it. 
Rhododendron regale, Balf. f. et Ward. 
This species was gathered by Kingdon Ward, in May, 1914, at Htawjaw, 
in the valley of Naum-Chaung, in N.E. Upper Burma, at an elevation of over 
10,000 feet. He describes it as a gnarled tree of 20-30 feet, bearing “ flowers 
rather glutinous, cream-white with dark-purple blotcli at base of corolla.” 
The large leaves recall those of R. basilicum. They are about 25 cm. or more 
long, 12 cm. wide, slightly wrinkled above, but their under surface is grey in 
colour like that of R. coriaceum, not cinnamon-brown as in so many of the 
Falconeri Series. The hairs of the upper stratum of underleaf indumentum 
are of a delicate consistence, each a funnel-shaped cup typically broad and open, 
but when closely pressed together forming narrow funnels, the stalk short, the 
wall of elongated small cells, the margin prolonged as a fringe of short hair- 
branches. This stratum is not thick, and is usually deciduous. The flower-truss 
is not large, apparently about 12 flowers. The flower is not of the largest in the 
217 
