Rhododendron fauriei Franch, a new species for
the flora of the continental part of the Far East
N. S. Shemetova, Vladivostok, USSR
During a field trip in 1968 in the Terneisk Province of the Primorsk Territory we found on the west slope of the Sikhota-Alinya a white-flowered
Rhododendron fauriei
Franch. This is a new species for the continental Far East. Until now a pink-flowered
R. fauriei
var.
roseum
has been reported from the Kurilian Islands (Kunashir and Iturup), but not on the continent.
The closest locality for our
R. fauriei
is in North Korea. There it grows 800 m above sea level, in mixed forests together with
Acer, Quercus, Betula, Abies, Tilia, Pinus, Magnolia, Thalictrum
, and
Forsythia
.
In the Sikhote-Aline several dozens of bushes of
R. fauriei
were found at 800-850 m above sea level on steep (35-40°) slopes under the tight pine-spruce forest. It grows 2.5-3 m (maximal 5 m) high with stems till 6 cm in diameter. It blooms richly in July, but produces only few fruits.
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Translation from the Russian by Dr. E. E. Leppik, Germplasm Resources Laboratory, Beltsville, MD 20705, from an article published originally in Botanicheskii Zhurnal, Volume 55, No. 4, pp 550-551 (1970).