Rhododendrons

Rhododendron keysii
Cinnabarina subsection
H3-4
Height: shrub 1.2-6m, an often straggly or leggy, vigorous shrub.
Flowers: terminal and axillary in top 1-3 leaves, 2-6 flowers per bud often forming dense clusters.
Corolla is narrowly tubular, slightly oblique, 1.5-2.5cm long, usually bicoloured in shades of deep red to
salmon or tinged orange to green with yellow or red lobes, sometimes all red, rarely all yellow.
May-July.
Leaves: evergreen, 5-15 x 1.5-3.6cm, elliptic to lanceolate, upper surface light to medium green,
not glaucous, moderately lepidote above, lower surface densely lepidote, scales half to their own diameter apart.
Introduced: 1851 and reintroduced 1987.
Distribution: Common in Bhutan, W. Arunachal Pradesh and S. Tibet, 2,400-3,700m in thickets in conifer and mixed forest.
Recognise by: unique flowers.