Hook. f.
Description
Rhododendron vaccinioides Hook. f. is a small epiphytic rhododendron of the eastern Himalaya and adjacent montane Asia, ranging from Nepal and India through Bhutan to southern China, Myanmar and Vietnam, with around 245 GBIF occurrences. It grows characteristically as an epiphyte on mossy trunks and branches, and occasionally on rocks, in humid broadleaved and mixed evergreen forest, across a wide altitudinal span. The three Bhutan gatherings cited, from Trashigang at 1300 m and Chendebji at 2450 m flowering in April and May, and Tumching-La at 3000 m, illustrate its broad range from warm subtropical to cool temperate cloud forest where atmospheric moisture is high.
The species is a dwarf, much-branched epiphytic shrub with slender twigs clothed in scales and bearing small, obovate, leathery leaves whose lower surface is densely lepidote, resembling the foliage of Vaccinium as the epithet implies. The flowers are small, solitary or few together at the branch tips, with a short tubular to campanulate, white to pale pink corolla, the lobes spreading; the ovary and style are scaly. The fruit is a small lepidote capsule splitting septicidally to release numerous minute seeds adapted to wind dispersal in the canopy.
Rhododendron vaccinioides belongs to subgenus Rhododendron, section Vireya-allied scaly rhododendrons, an epiphytic lineage radiating through the wet forests of Asia. Its diminutive epiphytic habit is unusual among Himalayan rhododendrons. Widespread and locally frequent, it is of least conservation concern, though dependent on intact humid forest canopy.
Author: Hook. f. · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China, The Genus Rhododendron (Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh), Cullen monograph of lepidote Rhododendron