棕背杜鹃 zong bei du juan

Shrubs, 1.5–4 m tall; young shoots and petioles densely woolly-tomentose and/or glandular; bud scales deciduous or ± persistent. Petiole 10–15 mm; leaf blade thickly leathery, oblong, broadly lanceolate to lanceolate or narrowly oblong, 5–14 × 1.5–3.5 cm; base obtuse or subrounded; margin revolute; apex acute or shortly acuminate; abaxial surface with indumentum 2-layered, upper layer thick, woolly or felted, pale brown, rufous, rust-red, sometimes ± detersile, hairs branched, lower layer gray-white and compacted; adaxial surface glabrous. Inflorescence racemose-umbellate, 10–15-flowered; rachis 10–18 mm. Pedicel 1.5–2 cm, sparsely floccose and short-glandular-hairy or eglandular; calyx lobes 5, ca. 1 mm, subrounded, sparsely ciliate outside, margin glandular-ciliate; corolla campanulate or funnel-campanulate, white to pink, with crimson spots and with purple red basal blotch, 3.5–4 cm, lobes 5; stamens 10, unequal, filaments densely white-puberulent; ovary ca. 6 mm, densely tomentose and glandular-hairy to glabrous or sparsely floccose-tomentose and eglandular; style glabrous. Capsule cylindric, 10–15 × ca. 4 mm. Fl. Jun–Jul, fr. Sep–Oct.

Coniferous forests, thickets, mountains, rocky slopes; 3200–4300 m. W Sichuan, SE Xizang, NW Yunnan.

Lower Taxa

• Rhododendron alutaceum var. alutaceum
• Rhododendron alutaceum var. iodes (I. B. Balfour & Forrest) D. F. Chamberlain
• Rhododendron alutaceum var. russotinctum (I. B. Balfour & Forrest) D. F. Chamberlain