Hook.f.
Description
Rhododendron camelliiflorum is a Himalayan endemic shrub restricted to the moist temperate belt of Nepal, India, Bhutan and adjacent China (Xizang), with 165 GBIF occurrences. It is characteristically epiphytic or lithophytic, growing on mossy tree trunks, rocks and banks within humid Abies, Tsuga and broadleaved forest, typically between about 2500 and 3500 m. The photographs were taken in Bhutan at Pele-La at 2800 m in June and at Luksor at 2900 m in July, cool cloud-forest sites where persistent mist and abundant epiphytic moss create the damp microhabitats this species favours.
It is a small, straggling evergreen shrub with scaly young shoots and coriaceous, elliptic to oblanceolate leaves that are dark green and lepidote (densely scaly) beneath, with revolute margins and an acute, mucronate apex. The flowers are borne singly or in small terminal clusters and are notably fleshy; the campanulate to broadly tubular, five-lobed corolla is waxy white, often flushed with pink or rose, recalling a small camellia, whence the epithet. The stamens are typically ten, with the ovary and style densely scaly. The fruit is a dry, scaly, septicidal capsule releasing numerous minute seeds.
The species belongs to subgenus Rhododendron, section Rhododendron (the lepidote rhododendrons), and its thick-textured flowers and epiphytic tendency distinguish it within the Himalayan assemblage. Its summer flowering and inaccessible epiphytic habit have kept it scarce in cultivation. Though confined to a narrow elevational band, it remains locally frequent in intact forest and is not currently considered globally threatened, but it is vulnerable to forest degradation across the eastern Himalaya.
Author: Hook.f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, The Genus Rhododendron (Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh), Rhododendrons of the Himalaya