ARS Victoria Newsletter – June 2020

• Date: 11th June 2020
• author: Francis Crome

ANOTHER NEW SPECIES Rhododendron pudingense

A new species of the Tsutsui subgenus has been described from Guizhou province in western China. It is a small leafed shrub with small pinkish-purple flowers in small 4-6 flowered inflorescences. Its habitat is interesting. It grows in cracks on limestone at elevations of 1300 – 1400 m. So far it is only known from the type locality in Puding county. It is considered to be extremely rare and endangered with maybe less than 100 individual plants.

It is closely related to R. myrsinifolium and R. minutiflorum, neither of which appear to be in cultivation in Australia.

Xiao-Yong Dai, Cheng-Hua Yang, Bing Yang, Pu Chen, Yong-Peng Ma. 2020. A new species of Rhododendron (Ericaceae) from Guizhou, China. PhytoKeys 146: 53–59. doi: 10.3897/phytokeys.146.51342

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