Rhododendron species?

[Afloden]

I have tried keying this in both Flora of China and Cullen's book and I am still at a loss .

 It looks closest to campylogynum, but it is obviously bright canary yellow and not some shade of pink. The stem is rough warty (nearly pointy) except on bark older than 3 years. The leaves have small (ca. 1mm or less) well spaced scales of two colors; dark and lighter. The flower is borne singly on a long white scaled peduncle and it is terminal. The calyx is reddish colored and short, ca. 2mm, lobes deltoid with some scales but no cilia on margins; stamens 8, stigma glabrous, ovary hairy, but without scales. The corolla has a few minute scales like the peduncle. The leaves are rounded at the apex, but with a minute mucro. The whole plant is small, about 50 cm at most and was at high elevations (2400m) only kilometers from the Chinese border in Vietnam. It was in flower a few weeks ago when the other half dozen or so much larger species were in seed.....

 

[johnw]

Aaron - There are yellow camplyogynums though they are not mentioned in the literature.  I discovered on the internet some years ago that there was a Dane growing one, I was stunned and wrote to him about it. I told Jens Birck about it and he went round to see him.  The fellow gave it to him!  Jens may remember the seed source I'm pretty sure it was the AGS as appears in the pic title.  Colours can range from black-purple through plum to red, pink, apricot, yellow and white.  Perhaps Jens will show us a better pic along with the range, he has most if not all of them. The SBEC form is a favourite here.

Your shot shows a particularly dark yellow. Superb!  The tube seems a tad short & squat.

johnw - now +15c, blowing and torrential downpours.  18c in parts of the Annapolis Valley today. Crazy weather.

[Lesley Cox]

There was a yellow campylogynum available some years ago from the late Jim LeComte, here in New Zealand. I wonder if it is still around now? The plants above look like pure gold to me - at least for the grower of small rhodos.

[Afloden]

Got an ID from a Rhody expert; seems its sororium (or poilanei is listed in FOC) close to emarginatum in Pseudovireya! It seems I went wrong in the key thinking it could not be in Vireya so I ignored the seed capsule character which was not at hand anyhow.

 

[johnw]

Now that's a surprise. Shouldn't have been considering the low altitude.

johnw

[Lesley Cox]

Not your usual then.