落毛杜鹃 luo mao du juan

Shrubs, 2.5–4 m tall; young shoots 4–5 mm in diam., sparsely red-glandular and floccose. Petiole 20–25 mm, sparsely floccose and shortly glandular-hairy; leaf blade leathery, oblong to oblong-elliptic, 7–10 × 2–4 cm; base obtuse or rounded; apex acute and apiculate; abaxial surface indumentum brownish to cinnamon, thin, loose, somewhat caducous; adaxial surface glabrous; net veins evident abaxially. Inflorescence racemose-umbellate, 6–10-flowered; rachis and pedicels sparsely floccose and glandular. Pedicel 2.5–3 cm; calyx lobes 5, 3–5 mm, unequal, ovate to oblong-ovate, obtuse, sparsely shortly glandular-hairy outside, margin glandular-ciliate; corolla funnel-campanulate, pink, crimson spotted on upper part of corolla-tube, 4–5 cm, lobes 5(–7), emarginate; stamens 10–14, unequal, filaments densely puberulent below middle; ovary 5–6 mm, densely shortly glandular-hairy; style ca. 2.5 cm, slightly shorter than corolla, shortly glandular-hairy in lower 3/4 stigma discoid. Fl. May.

Coniferous forests, Rhododendron thickets, mountain slopes; 3000–3400 m. NW Yunnan.

This entity is a natural hybrid of Rhododendron adenogynum (see Chamberlain, Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinburgh 39: 341. 1982).