Rhododendrons on the Internet
Sandra McDonald, Ph.D.
Hampton, Virginia
Reprinted from the Middle Atlantic Chapter newsletter
Sites useful to people interested in rhododendrons continue to proliferate on the Internet. There are several different kinds of sites which can be useful. Many university libraries have their catalogs online; some botanical gardens are online; some herbaria are online; some organizations have web sites that are of interest.
The Alderman Library of the University of Virginia, which is the official repository for Middle Atlantic Chapter and many ARS old records, can be accessed at the following URL:
http://www.lib.virginia.edu/
You do need Ftp capability. Choose Virgo and other catalogs. Log in as Connect Virgo. For terminal type it is probably safest to choose VT100. Do a keyword search with k=rhododendrons and you will be surprised at how much you find. The entries include many rhododendron books and some of the manuscript collection. It is great to be able to search the Alderman Library of the University of Virginia catalog without long distance phone charges!
For other sites, you can use one of the several search engines and find thousands of sites, but many of these are not very relevant. One place I found especially interesting was List of WWW Sites of Interest to Botanists at:
http://www4.uwm.edu/letsci/biologicalsciences/
This site has a long list of herbaria and gardens that can be accessed, including the living collection at Arnold Arboretum. The herbarium at Harvard University is also online. The Smithsonian Natural History Museum has a site at:
http://botany.si.edu/
where you can choose U.S. National Herbarium, then choose Type Specimens and then choose Rhododendrons and you will find the isotypes (a specimen of the same collection as the holotype [the holotype is the specimen designated as the type for the species by the author of the species]) of many rhododendron species.
Rhododendrons at:
https://www.tylerarboretum.org/
is a wonderful site for Tyler Arboretum, which has many pictures available especially of the Swarthmore Dexters. A site that has links to the Meerkerk Rhododendron Gardens, the Pukeiti Menu, the Rhododendron Park Bremen (Germany) and the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden is Other Rhododendron and Gardening Pages at:
http://www.mbark.swin.edu.au/yarranet/tourism/pages/rhodo/other.html
There is a site by the APS Press for Diseases of Azalea (Rhododendron ssp.) at:
https://www.apsnet.org/PUBLICATIONS/Pages/default.aspx
There is another site for Problems of Rhododendrons at:
http://coopext.cahe.wsu.edu/~lenora/ rhododendron.html
which is at Washington State University. The University of Delaware has a site with many nice photographs at:
http://bluehen.ags.udel.edu/gopher-data2.botanic_garden/shrubs/.htm/
.botanic_garden/shrubs/.htm
A Guide to Internet Resources can be found at:
http://www.olympus.net/gardens/point1.htm
where there are many gardening subjects from which to choose.
Sandra McDonald, a member of the Middle Atlantic Chapter, is Alternate District 9 Director.