强壮杜鹃 qiang zhuang du juan

Trees, 13–18 m tall; branchlets stout, glabrous. Petiole stout, slightly flattened, narrowly winged, 30–35 mm, sparsely gray-tomentose, glabrescent; leaf blade leathery, broadly obovate to oblong-ovate, widest above middle, 20–32 × 10–14 cm; base cuneate with broad wings decurrent down petiole; apex rounded, shortly apiculate; abaxial surface gray-white, with a thin loose 2-layered indumentum, upper layer arachnoid, tending to disappear in older leaves, lower layer compacted; adaxial surface slightly rugulose, glabrous; midrib and veins prominent abaxially. Inflorescence racemose-umbellate, ca. 30-flowered; rachis ca. 30 mm. Pedicel 1–1.5 cm, densely rufous-pubescent; calyx lobes 8, ca. 1 mm; corolla campanulate or funnelform-campanulate, rosy-purple, unspotted, 5–6 × ca. 5 cm, with darker nectar pouches, puberulent at base inside, lobes 8; stamens 16, unequal, filaments glabrous; ovary ca. 7 × 4 mm, 16–20-locular, densely rufous-tomentose; style red, longer than stamens, glabrous, stigma discoid. Fl. Feb–Mar.

Rainy forests or thickets along stream banks; 1800–2400 m. SE Xizang (Myanmar border) [NE Myanmar].

The type specimen (Kingdon Ward 9200, BM) was collected in the Adung Valley in NE Myanmar. As this locality is almost on the border with Xizang, this species is almost certain to occur in China too.