Rhododendron cinnabarinum

Habit

Shrub or small tree

Family Description

Trees, shrubs, or subshrubs, often evergreen, sometimes epiphytic. Leaves alternate, sometimes becoming aggregate into pseudo-whorls, simple, pinnately veined, exstipulate. Flowers in racemes, corymbs, panicles, clusters or solitary, actinomorphic or zygomorphic, bisexual. Calyx of 5(-8)sepals, free and borne on ovary, or united into tube at base. Corolla of 5(-10)petals united at base or almost to apex, tubular, barrel-shaped, urn-shaped, campanulate, funnel-shaped or salver-shaped. Ovary inferior or superior, 4-5(-20)-celled; style cylindric; stigmasimple; ovules numerous, axile. Fruit a berry or 5(-20)-valved capsule, sometimes enclosed by enlarged fleshy calyx.. . Members of the Ericaceae are of great horticultural importance in North temperate countries, particularly in Europe and north America where many genera are prized as ornamentals, including Rhododendron (by far the most important), Enkianthus, Pieris, Gaultheria, Vaccinium and Agapetes. Bhutan is particularly rich in Ericaceae, and there exists some economic potential for commercial production to the rare species.. . The family is treated here in a broad sense, including those genera sometimes placed separately in Vacciniaceae.

Genus Description

Evergreen shrubs or trees, often aromatic;indumentum of simple or compound hairs or peltate scales. Leaves alternate or clustered at branch ends, coriaceous,entire. Flowers interminal condensed racemoes, rarely solitary, weakly zygomorphic. Calyx 5(-8)-lobed, often reduced to shallow cup. Corolla campanulate, funnel-shaped or salver-shaped, rarely cylindric, with5-10 long or short lobes. stemans (5-)10(-18). Ovary 5-20-celled;stigma capitate. Capsule 4-20-valved.

Species description

Shrub or small tree 2-6m, branchlets densely scaly.Leaves narrowly to broadly elliptic, 6-11x2.5-4cm, rounded or subacute with mucronate point, base rounded, densely scaly beneath, glabrous or scaly above; petioles 1-1.5cm, scaly. Racemes terminal, compact, 2-6-flowered; pedicels 6-13mm. calyx small, cup-shaped with short rounded lobes up to1mm, scaly. Corolla fleshy, tubular-campanulate or campanulate,2.5-3.5cm, usually oranfe-yellow, sometimes reddish or purple. Stamens 10; filaments hairy towards base. Ovary scaly. Fruit cylindric, 8-12mm. Two subspecies occur: 1. subsp cinnabarinum - Leaves narrowly to broadly elliptic, glabrous above except when young, corolla 3-3.5cm, with narrow tube. 2. subsp xanthocodon - Leaves broadly elliptic, often shorter than in subsp. cinnabarinum, distinctly persistently scaly on upper surface; corolla more broadly campanulate, 2.5-3cm.