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| George Forrest |
Last week I spun a
tale about the great plant explorer George Forrest (1873-1932) that
was based on his Notes on the Plants of
North West Yunnan. Today I will discuss
the Rhododendrons that he encountered, some of which he introduced to
cultivation. The short, stocky Scotsman demonstrated his
organizational skills and enthusiastic energy, working alone except
for the team of locals that he trained and directed. On some of his
Chinese expeditions he was accompanied by his trusted dog, N., who
was perhaps less interested in the adventure, but the mutt was
fortunate to avoid becoming a Chinese meal. At other times he relied
on Catholic missionaries for his sustenance.
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| Rhododendron clementinae |
Forrest's first trip
was in 1904 and it was successful, but he nearly lost his life due to
the 1905 Tibetan Rebellion where foreigners were targeted by
murderous Buddhist lamas. He raced through the woods at night for two
weeks to reach safety, then later returned to collecting. Back in the
UK he married Clementina Traill in 1907 and she produced three sons.
One wonders how she felt about his dangerous career in China, but
perhaps to appease her, he named a lovely Rhododendron in her honour,
R. clementinae.
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| Rhododendron wardii |
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| Rhododendron wardii |
Forrest writes about
the Rhododendrons on Haba Mountain, that a pass called Bei-ma-shan
is 16,000 feet high which is closed by snow from October to May. “The
summer is very short but despite that, the flora is wonderfully rich
and quite distinct. On that range R. Wardii, a grand species 14 to 20
feet in height, with bright yellow flowers was first found in July
1913, as well as many equally beautiful, such as R. warifolium, R.
roxieanum, with rose pink blooms and R. Clementinae, with white and
rose flowers.” Note that Forrest uses
capitals for the specific epithets that are named for people per the
old custom.
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| Haba Snow Mountain |
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| Giant Chinese Salamander |
The Haba Snow
Mountain rises above the Jinsha River,* 120 km southeast of Shangri
La City, with its main peak of 5,396 m
(17,703 ft). The Chinese have now created a tourist destination in
the area, but it didn't exist yet when I visited in the 1980's. Today
one can mountain climb or visit the Mystical
Heihai Lake that “gets
its name from the color of its water, which is black as ink,”
according to the promotional hype, and furthermore there is the
promise of an “abundance of Chinese
giant salamanders that swim together forming a ring in the shallows
of the Black Sea when an appropriate temperature is reached...”
Also advertised are the Beautiful
Rhododendra [sic]: “It
is the best time to visit Haba Snow Mountain from April to June when
the rhododendra are in full blossom. You will be surprised to find
that there are so many varieties of rhododendra. More than 200
hundred kinds of rhododendra are distributed from the bottom to the
top of the mountain, accounting for 70% of those in Yunnan.”
No doubt Forrest would be astonished by the tourist development and
the “rhododendra” babble.
*The Jinsha River
(“Gold Sand River”) is known as “Dri Chu” in Tibetan, but
“Jinsha” in Chinese refers to the upper stretches of the Yangtze
River. It flows through the provinces of Qinghai, Sichuan, and in
Yunnan it passes through the famous “Tiger-Leaping Gorge.”
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| Rhododendron clementinae |
But, back to the
bushes. Rhododendron clementinae blooms pinkish-white in April, but
the rest of the year it features glossy curved leaves with a slightly
fawn indumentum on the underside. I don't grow it on my grounds, but
I don't have to because I can see it any time at the Rhododendron
Species Botanic Garden in Washington state, a destination that you
should surely visit at least once.
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| Rhododendron wardii var. wardii |
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| Rhododendron wardii x macabeanum |
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| Rhododendron wardii x macabeanum |
As mentioned above,
Forrest considered Rhododendron Wardii as “a grand
species...featuring bright yellow flowers.” Forrest had formidable
competition in China, and English explorer Frank Kingdon-Ward beat
him to the punch in introducing R. wardii (1913). Plants can vary in
the wild, but at its best the blossoms are a clear yellow, and often
feature a crimson blotch inside the center. Forrest discovered and
introduced (1913) a form of R. wardii named puralbum,
with white flowers as the name implies. The yellow form is popular
for hybridizing, and an impressive cross seen at the Species Garden
is R. wardii x R. macabeanum.
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| Rhododendron roxieanum var. oreonastes |
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| Rhododendron roxieanum var. oreonastes |
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| Rhododendron roxieanum var. oreonastes |
The Forrest report
is inconsistent in the use of capitalized specific epithets honouring
people, as with Clementinae
and Wardii,
but not with R. roxieanum
for some reason. The latter was named after a missionary friend of
his, Mrs. Roxie Hanna. R. roxieanum also varies in the wild, and
Forrest's discovery (1914) of var. oreonastes
is a form with extremely narrow leaves which has achieved the
prestigious RHS Award of Garden Merit. The species can be shy to
flower, but blossoms aren't much to see anyway. I placed my oldest
specimen next to my house to enjoy the narrow foliage, as I have
always been a fan of the skinny.
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| Rhododendron sulfureum |
Forrest describes
the landscape: “On the highest
limestone peaks of the Shweli-Salwin divide, which is the most
prominent range on the route from Tengyueh to Tali [Dali], a flora is
found much akin to that of the Lichiang [Lijiang] and higher ranges
in the extreme north-west. To take Rhododendron alone, such species
as R. Souliei, R. sulfureum, R. crassum [R. maddenii ssp. crassum] R.
bullatum [R. edgeworthii], R. trichocladum, R. neriifolium, R.
campylogynum, and R. lacteum var. macrophyllum are common to both...”
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| Rhododendron souliei |
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| Rhododendron souliei |
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| Andre Soulie, bottom right |
While I'm a fan of
the skinny, I'm also a fan of the round, and in The
Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs, R.
souliei is described as “A beautiful,
hardy [-5 F], medium-sized shrub with almost round leaves, 5-7.5 cm
long, and saucer-shaped, white or soft pink flowers in May and June.”
It was originally introduced by E.H. “Chinese” Wilson in 1903
from neighboring Sichuan province. The species name R.
souliei was bestowed by botanist Adrien
Rene Franchet in honour of Pere Jean Andre Soulie, a French
missionary based in Sichuan who sent plant specimens to the Paris
Museum of Natural History. In order to not
attract attention, Soulie disguised himself as a native merchant, but
his luck ran out and he was captured, and after two weeks of torture
he was shot by his captors. In ten years Soulie collected more than
7,000 specimens from the high-altitude Tibetan region, being the last
of the great French missionary-botanists that included Pere Delavay
and Pere Armand David.
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| Rhododendron edgeworthii |
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| Rhododendron edgeworthii |
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| Rhododendron edgeworthii 'Bodnant' |
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| Rhododendron 'Coastal Spice' |
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| Rhododendron 'Coastal Spice' |
Rhododendron
edgeworthii* was first discovered and introduced by Joseph Hooker in
Sikkim in the 1850s, then later introduced by Forrest as R. bullatum
from Yunnan, so Hooker's name takes precedence. You can see from the
foliage photo above that Forrest's collection was named for the
bullate
leaves, meaning “blistered” or “bubbled,” a feature
that's...interesting, more than attractive. I kept my one plant in a
pot in a protective greenhouse, and indeed it perished one winter
when the heater failed. R. edgeworthii is one of the parents of x
'Coastal Spice', a cross made by the late Jim Gerdeman of Yachats,
Oregon which we still grow. The fragrance is overwhelming, really,
for R. edgeworthii and its hybrid, so much so that the greenhouse
poly literally throbs in April, and with plants like that I've always
referred to GH20 as the “French house.”
*The specific
epithet honours Michael Pakenham Edgeworth (1812-1881), an Irish
botanist who spent most of his life working in India.
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| Rhododendron bureavii |
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| Rhododendron bureavii |
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| Rhododendron bureavii |
I have long been
fascinated with the foliage of Rhododendron bureavii
or R. Bureavii
as Forrest deems it, and my original start was gifted to me by my
friend Reuben Hatch who spent a career growing species of “rose
trees” for the “discerning gardener.” E.H. Wilson introduced R.
bureavii in 1904, but it was first discovered by Delavay in 1896. The
species won an Award of Merit for its flower in 1939 – which is
difficult to fathom – and for foliage in 1972 which is
understandable. Hillier describes it well: “This
outstanding species is well worth growing if only for the attractive
colours of its young growths, which vary between pale fawn and warm
rusty red.” I have a couple of R.
bureavii well-sited in shady positions; they grow slow and compact
but never with particular vigour. Nevertheless, Hatch used to root
the species and sold a modest amount in his one-man nursery. My
specimens are grafted onto vigorous hybrid rootstock, but still they
don't shoot out much propagating wood. It was botanist Adrien Rene
Franchet who again hogged the naming rights to R. bureavii, and he
took the opportunity to honour Edouard Bureau (1831-1918), another
French botanist.
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| Rhododendron neriiflorum 'Rosevallon' |
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| Rhododendron neriiflorum ssp. neriiflorum |
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| Rhododendron neriiflorum ssp. neriiflorum |
I'll reveal my
ignorance about some species of Rhododendron, and one such is R.
neriiflorum which I have only seen at the Rhododendron Species
Botanic Garden. Theirs were sparse in flower overall, but the deep
red colour was intoxicating. While moving a branch to photograph one
I discovered the leave's undersides to be clad in a purple
indumentum. On the internet you can see the same feature from a
Botany Photo of the Day on the University of British Columbia
website. Confusingly, however, Hillier describes R. neriiflorum as
having undersides “gleaming white,” and a UK nursery (Millais)
describes them as “waxy white.” Flower colour apparently can vary
too, and a form at the Sir Harold Hillier Garden is said to be
“straw-yellow, tipped in scarlet.” It is another species to be
discovered by Pere Delavay and named by Franchet, then finally
introduced by Forrest in 1910.
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| Trachycarpus fortunei |
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| Rhododendron fortunei ssp. fortunei |
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| Rhododendron fortunei (Liushan Form) |
In Forrest's article
he mentions the “rolling plateau”
that rises to 11,000 feet between
Tengyueh and Talifu, and there one will find “forms
of R. Fortunei,” or “[various
species in subsection Fortunea]”
according to Steve Hootman. Hillier says R. fortunei is “probably
the first hardy Chinese species to be introduced,”
and was done so by Robert Fortune in 1855, then first described by
botanist Lindley. Fortune – pronounced Fortoon
– was a Scottish botanist and explorer in China. He too travelled
in disguise, for his main purpose was to swipe tea plants (Camellia
sinensis) and tea-making information for the British East India
Company, and he would surely have been put to death if caught. The
earliest account of tea in China was a poem by Wang Bao over two
thousand years ago. At first tea drinking was medicinal, then around
300 AD it was consumed for pleasure, and was associated with Buddhist
practices in about 700 AD. By the 1600s the Chinese were exporting
their cultural product to Europe, and was the only tea producer in
the world at that time. Fortune introduced about 250 other species to
the Western world, most notable perhaps was the “Windmill palm,”
Trachycarpus fortunei.
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| Rhododendron racemosum |
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| Rhododendron racemosum |
Forrest mentions his
encounter with Rhododendron racemosum: “As
the western slopes of the Tali range are approached the character of
the flora changes, becoming distinctly more alpine...there is found a
very tall-growing and free-flowering form of R. racemosum.”
That's interesting because the only form I have encountered appear to
be compact, and perhaps dwarf shrubs. When in flower the bush looks
like a soft cloud, and you might think that you have died and gone to
heaven where all the clouds are pink. And again: Pere Delavay,
Franchet then Forrest. The latter also found a dwarf form in 1921
with red branchlets and bright pink flowers which has been named
'Forrest's Dwarf'. The specific epithet is due to the species'
unusual characteristic of “bearing
inflorescences in racemes.”
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| Rhododendron rex ssp. fictolacteum |
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| Rhododendron rex ssp. fictolacteum |
Forrest says of the
Tali range that “The real wealth of
the area is centered in the Rhododendrons. On both flanks of the
range in common with all the mountains of north-west Yunnan, above
the pine belt there is a distinct zone of Rhododendron forest,
commencing first as isolated specimens among the outlying groups of
conifers, and then as dense thickets 20 to 40 feet in height,
composed of such species as R. taliense, R. fictolacteum [R. rex ssp.
fictolacteum], R. anthosphaerum, R. Beesianum, R. rubiginosum, R.
irroratum...”
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| Rhododendron irroratum |
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| Rhododendron irroratum |
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| Rhododendron irroratum 'Polka Dot' |
Let's zero in on the
last species mentioned, Rhododendron irroratum, and yep, another Pere
Delavay – Franchet – Forrest combo. Hillier tells us that it is a
large shrub or small tree and “Flowers
variously coloured, usually white, pink or creamy yellow with a more
or less broad ray of dark crimson markings or sometimes heavily
spotted...” Hillier lists one
cultivar of R. irroratum, 'Polka Dot' which I have seen but don't
grow, and calls it a “very remarkable
form, the white flowers being densely marked with purple dots.”
In fact the specific epithet irroratum
means “speckled.”
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| Pere Dubernard |
What a remarkable
life was George Forrests! Thankfully he escaped capture (July 1905)
at the beginning of his career in China, outrunning the murderous
lamas. I know, the concept of “murderous
lamas” certainly seems oxymoronic,
but perhaps they were overly hopped up on tea. At one point Forrest
assumed he was doomed, and being a good rifleman, he decided to at
least take out a couple of his pursuers. But off in the distance he
was surprised to see Pere Dubernard waving him to safety. Forrest had
met Dubernard at the French mission when he first arrived in Yunnan,
so he took off running again, eventually to safety. Forrest later
learned that Dubernard had been murdered three days prior to his
vision.
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| George Forrest with his Chinese assistant |
Forrest was honoured
with the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal of Honour in
1921, and the Veitch Memorial Medal in 1927. His 7th expedition to China in 1930 was to be his last. He intended to then
return to Scotland and retire, perhaps to organize his adventures in
written form. His last trip was very productive, and in 1932 when the
bulk of the work was accomplished he collapsed while hunting and died
of a massive heart failure. He was buried near his base camp in
Yunnan, China. What a horrible heartache it must have been for wife
Clementine and his three sons.
“...Oh my
darling, Clementine.”
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| George Forrest was buried in the foreigner's cemetery in Tengchong, China |
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