6 PREFACE.
“ Such is the aspect of the Himalaya range at early morning. As the sun’s rays dart into the many valleys which
lie between the snowy mountains and Darjeeling, the stagnant air contained in the low recesses becomes quickly heated:
heavy masses of vapour, dense, white, and keenly defined, arise from the hollows, meet over the crests of the hills, filing to
the forests on their summits, enlarge, unite, and ascend rapidly to the rarefied regions above, —a phenomenon so suddenly
developed, that the consequent withdrawal from the spectator’s gaze of the stupendous scenery beyond, looks like the work
of magic.” Such is the region of the Indian Rhododendrons.
Perhaps, with the exception of the Rose, the Queen of Flowers, no plants have excited a more lively interest
throughout Europe than the several species of the genus Rhododendron,* whether the fine evergreen foliage be considered,
or the beauty and profusion of the blossoms; and it may probably be said with truth, that no kind of flowering shrub
is so easily, and has been so extensively, cultivated, or has formed so vast an article of traffic, as that one oriental species
to which the name seems more immediately to have been given, the Rhododendron Ponticum. Its poisonous qualities, too,
have tended to bring it the more into notice; for, to eating the honey collected by the bees from that plant, (as well as from
the Azalea Pontica,) in the neighbourhood of Trebizond, during the celebrated retreat of the Ten Thousand, were attributed
the dreadful sufferings of the Greeks; so severe that their actions were said to resemble those of drunken persons
or madmen. Major Madden has stated that cattle sometimes perish by feeding upon the foliage and flowers of Rhododendron
arboreum in the mountains of Kamaoon. Dr. Hooker remarks, on a recent tour while exploring the mountain-
passes leading into Thibet:—“ Here are three Rhododendrons, two of them resinous and strongly odoriferous; and it is to
the presence of these plants that the natives attribute the painful sensations experienced at great elevations.”
The R. PonUcum, which inhabits the mountains of Asia Minor and extends as far west as Spain and Portugal, together
with R. ferrugineum and Hrsutum of the European Alps, R. Bahuricum of Siberia, R. Chiamcecistus of the Austrian and
Piedmontese mountains, R. maximum of the United States of America, and the arctic R. Lapponicum, were all the kinds
known to Linnasus and to the botanical world so recently as 1764. The beautiful R. chrysanthwn of Northern Siberia
appeared in Linnaeus’ Supplement. Gmelin added the R. Kamtschaticum from Okotsk and Sehring’s Straits, and Pallas
the charming R. Caucasieim from the Caucasian Alps.
Towards the very close of the 18th century, namely in 1796, R. arboreum, the first of a new form and aspect of the
genus, and peculiar to the lofty mountains of India Proper, was discovered by Captain Hardwicke, in the Sewalic chain
of the Himalaya, while he was on a tour to Sireenagur. The species has since been found to have a very extended range.
It was published in 1805 by Sir James E. Smith, in the “ Exotic Botany” of that author, and is characterized by its
arborescent stem, very rich scarlet flowers, and leaves that are silvery on the underside. Sir James, on the authority
no doubt of Captain Hardwicke, gives the height of the tree at twenty feet ; but Major Madden, who found it on the
mountains of Kamaoon, at elevations of from 3,500 to 10,000 feet, says he might safely have doubled that measurement.
On Binaur, a trunk was found to be thirteen feet in girth, and another at Nynee Tal, sixteen feet; while a third, at
Singabee Devee, was fourteen feet and a half in the circumference of the stem at five feet from the ground.
1 So called, as is well known, from p6Sov, a rose, and dtvdpov, a tree : a name, however, which was given with equal justice to the
hose-bay, Nenum Oleander, the pofioSdtjnn] of the modern Greeks.
fBhbSSe 7
It does not appear on record by whom the Tree Rhododendroh was first introduced into Europe, probably by
Dr. Wallich, about the year 1827. We know that to that distinguished botanist we owe the discovery, and the possession
of1 most of them in our gardens, of other noble Indian species, such as R.formosum, R. barbatum, R.nobile, R. cam-
panulatum, R. cinnamomeum, with their many varieties, the limits of which are not clearly defined; and'the facility these
kinds afford for hybridizing with R. arboreum) thereby rendering the produce'more hardy, has occasioned the original type
of this latter species to be almost lost to our gardens.
■ R. Nildgi/ricum (Bot. Mag. t. 4381) was introduced to our gardens by Messrs. Lucombe, Pince, and Co., of the Exeter
Nursery, a species assuredly quite, and permanently, distinct from R. arboreum, though published and figured under
that name in Dr. Wight’s leones. Dr. Wallich, about the same period, detected another distinct, but not less interesting,
group of species, in Northern India, more allied to R. ferrugineum and R. Hrsutum; namely R. setosmi, R. lepidotum,
and R. Anihopogon.
Drs. Horsfield, Blume, and Jack made known some species from the mountains of Java: they were R. Javanicum
(a most lovely shrub, introduced to our gardens by Messrs. Yeitch and Sons of Exeter, through their collector, Mr. W. Lobb,
see Bot. Mag. t. 4336), R. album, R. retusum, R. tubijlorum, R. Malayanvm, and R. Celebicum. Blume, we believe, first
noticed a species as being epiphytal, in Java (“ supra arbores ”), his R. (Firega) album. Mr. William Lobb informs me
that several Mnds are there epiphytal; and Mr. Low, who speaks of the fine Rhododendrons existing in Borneo,
particularizes one which inhabits invariably the trunks of trees, and which he had the good fortune to send to
England alive, though we fear it has not been preserved in our collections.
What may be the number of species, or what the kinds, detected by Mr. Griffith during his'travels in Bootan, we
do not learn from the volume of his Posthumous Papers recently published at Calcutta by Mr. M'Clelland; nor am I aware
whether Dr. Wight has published the whole of them in-the paper of that gentleman, in the Calcutta Journal of Natural
History, vol. viii., on certain Rhododendrons of Mr. Griffith. In Dr. Wight’s leones he figures and describes only two,
R.grande and R. Grijjilhianum; both very distinct from any found by Dr. Hooker in the adjacent territory of Sikkim.
And in proof of the prevalence of the genus in Bootan,? it may be observed that Mr. Griffith, in his Journal, when speaking
of one single excursion (to DoonglalaPeak, 12,478 feet of elevation), enumerates no less than eight distinct species; viz.
* Floribus in racemis umbelUformilus.
1. R. arboreum; arboreum, foliis oblongo-obovatis subtus argenteis.
2. R.ferrugineim ; arboreum, foliis obovatis supra rugosis subtus ferrugineis.
8. R.------ ; fruticosum, foliis oblongis subtus ferrugineo-lepidotis.
4. R. ellipticum; fruticosum, foliis ellipticis.
5. R.------; fruticosum, foliis ellipticis basi cordatis subtus glaucis reticulatis.
6. R.------; fruticosum, foliis lanceolatis oblongis sub-obovatis subtus punctatis.
7. R. muhdatwm ; fruticosum, foliis elongate -lanceolatis undulatis subtus reticulatis.
** Floribus solitaries.
8. R. microphyllum; fruticosum totum ferrugineo-lepidotum, foliis lanceolatis parvis.