短尖杜鹃 duan jian du juan

Dwarf shrubs, erect; young shoots ca. 3.5 mm in diam., whitish tomentose, glabrescent. Petiole 10–15 mm; leaf blade leathery, ovate-oblong, ca. 10 × 3.5 cm; base obtuse or rounded; apex acute; abaxial surface pale green, indumentum pale brown, ± detersile; adaxial surface dark green, shiny, glabrous, sometimes with vestiges of young hairs. Inflorescence racemose-umbellate, ca. 10-flowered; rachis ca. 7 mm. Pedicel ca. 1.5 cm, densely whitish tomentose; calyx lobes 5, ca. 1.5 mm, rounded, pubescent outside; corolla funnel-campanulate, creamy-white, with deep carmine basal blotch and some red spots, ca. 2.5 cm, lobes 5; stamens 10, unequal, filaments densely puberulent at base; ovary conical, ca. 6 mm, densely tomentose; style green, glabrous; stigma discoid.

W Sichuan.

This entity is not actually known in the wild. The type was raised at Edinburgh from seeds collected in the wild in W Sichuan (Wilson 1866) and labeled Rhododendron wasonii.