Rhododendron Cultivars F

Fabia (dichroanthum × griersonianum)

This cross has been made in many gardens, with differing results according to the form of R. dichroanthum used, but no two plants are exactly alike in colour even when raised from the same seed-pod. The inflorescence is lax, with seven to ten flowers. Corolla funnel-shaped, 21⁄2 to 3 in. wide, with a large coloured calyx, usually in blended shades of orange and pink. Leaves dark green or medium green, more or less elliptic, to 5 in. long, with a light coloured indumentum beneath. The height varies, some clones being 3 to 4 ft high, others taller, but all are compact. Flowering time late May or June. The plants are very hardy and will stand full sun, though slight shade is better.

In the form that received the A.M. when shown from Bodnant in 1934 the flowers were described as bright scarlet. In ‘Tangerine’, one of the best clones and also raised at Bodnant, they are soft vermilion shading to a pinker colour at the edge, and orange in the throat. ‘Roman Pottery’, raised by J. Crosfield at Embley Park, has flowers described as pale orange with coppery lobes. In ‘Fabia Tower Court’, a dwarf clone, they are ‘soft orange pink, with a deep rose flush at the tips’ (Rhododendrons at Sunningdale, p. 53).

Mohamet (dichroanthum × eriogynum) resembles the Fabia grex, but the corolla has a broader base. It is less hardy and not so good. Raised at Exbury.

Rhododendron Fabia Group at Exbury, Hampshire, UK. 18 March 2020.30 May 2008. Image John Anderson.

Rhododendron Fabia Group at Exbury, Hampshire, UK. 18 March 2020.30 May 2008. Image John Anderson.

Rhododendron Fabia Group in the Valley Gardens, Windsor Great Park, UK. 25 May 2017. Image John Anderson.

'Faggetter's Favourite'

Flowers slightly fragrant, 11 to 13 in a dome-shaped truss with an unusually long rachis. Corolla 6– or 7-lobed, funnel-shaped, 3 3⁄4 in. wide, deep pink in the bud, opening creamy white flushed with Phlox Pink, with two lines of brownish-green speckles in the throat. Style with large green stigma. Compact habit, medium size, fast-growing. A chance hybrid of R. fortunei. A.M.T. 1955. Mr Faggetter was rhododendron foreman at the Goldsworth Nurseries of Messrs Slocock, where this hybrid was raised.

Rhododendron 'Faggetters Favourite' at Exbury, Hampshire, UK. 2 May 2007. Image John Anderson.

Fairy Light (griersonianum × 'Lady Mar')

This Exbury hybrid has never received an award, but is useful for its moderate growth and late flowering (June). The corolla is clear rich pink, darker in the throat and with slight red speckling on the upper lobe, the outside of the tube bright red.

Rhododendron 'Fairy Light' at Ness Botanic Gardens, Cheshire, UK. 3 May 2026. Image Tom Christian.

'Fanny'

Deep purplish rose, 13⁄4 in. wide; tube red; flare orange. A Ghent azalea of unknown origin, very free-flowering in mid- or late May, of an unusual colour that clashes with most pinks and reds. The International Register gives ‘Pucella’ as its correct name – surely a corruption of ‘Pulchella’? It is possibly the same as ‘Pulchella Roseola’, described in the Register as ‘pinkish mauve, yellow blotch’.

'Farall Yellow'

Deep yellow with a flare of buttercup-yellow (Knap Hill; M. Haworth-Booth). A.M.T. 1957.

'Fastuosum Flore Pleno'

Flowers 15 to 17 in a broad truss. Corolla funnel-shaped, 2 to 23⁄4 in. wide, most of its stamens converted into extra petals or staminodes, pale bluish mauve with a golden-brown or greenish flare. Leaves oblong obovate, 5 by 2 in., dull green. Late May or early June. A large, compact shrub, raised on the continent before 1846 and still one of the most valuable of all rhododendrons. The colour is nearly blue in some lights. Very near to R. catawbiense. A.G.M. 1928.

Rhododendron 'Fastuosum Flore Pleno' at the Savill Garden, Windsor Great Park, UK.14 May 2020. Image John Anderson.

Rhododendron 'Fastuosum Flore Pleno' at Cluny House Gardens, Perthshire, UK. 21 May 2024. Image Tom Christian.

'Favorite'

Corolla 11⁄2 in. wide, vivid crimson-pink, slightly waved at the margin. Bright green, glossy leaves. Early May. Dense habit (R. kaempferi × ‘Hinodegiri’; C. B. van Nes). Very free-flowering.

Rhododendron 'Favorite' at Arboretum Wespelaar, Belgium. 11 April 2024. Image Tom Christian.

Rhododendron 'Favorite' at Arboretum Wespelaar, Belgium. 11 April 2024. Image Tom Christian.

'Final Blush'

Another clone of R. kaempferi ‘Daimio’ × R. simsii (M. Haworth-Booth) with flowers in a ‘browner’ shade of pink than ‘Bengal Beauty’.

'Floradora'

Light orange with a flare of brownish spots (Mollis; M. Koster and Sons). A.M. 1911.

'Floriade'

Flowers 14 to 20 in a large truss. Corolla campanulate, 31⁄2 to 4 in. wide, deep crimson with a heavy brown flare and dark crimson nectaries. End-May. A hybrid of recent introduction, raised in Holland by Adrian van Nes.

'Florida'

Corolla 21⁄2 in. wide, red shaded vermilion with darker speckling on the upper lobes, semi-double owing to the conversion of the stamens into irregularly shaped mostly large extra lobes. Low growing. Late May (Vuyk van Nes). Bud-tender; flowers ugly in form, but of vivid colour.

'Forsteriana'

Flowers hose-in-hose. Corolla 11⁄8 in. wide, campanulate, near Currant Red (47b). Style and stamens abnormal. Late May or early June. Low and dense (Otto Forster, Lebenhof, Austria, before 1892). A hybrid of ‘Amoenum’, hardy but poorly coloured.

Fortune (falconeri × sinogrande)

This hybrid, raised by Lionel de Rothschild at Exbury, received an F.C.C. when shown in 1938. The flowers are borne up to thirty together in a splendid truss 7 in. high and 9 in. wide. The corolla is clear yellow with a crimson mark at the base. The leaves resemble those of R. sinogrande in their glossy upper surface, but the indumentum is thicker and darker (Rothschild Rhododendrons, pls. 15 and 16).

Rhododendron 'Fortune' at Brodick Castle, Isle of Arran, UK. 29 April 2024. Image Tom Christian.

Rhododendron 'Fortune' at Exbury, Hampshire, UK. 24 April 2013. Image John Anderson.

Close-up on a truss of Rhododendron 'Fortune' at Exbury, Hampshire, UK. 24 April 2013. Image John Anderson.

Rhododendron 'Fortune' at Exbury, Hampshire, UK. 24 April 2013. Image John Anderson.

Fragrans

Flowers very fragrant, in clusters of twelve to twenty; pedicels 3⁄4 to 1 in. long, glandular. Calyx-lobes linear-triangular, 1⁄8 to 1⁄4 in. long, downy and glandular. Corolla funnel-shaped, about 11⁄4 in. long and wide, white at the centre, deeply and unequally finged at the edge with purplish lilac, downy outside and in the throat. Stamens ten, very hairy at the base, Leaves persistent except in hard winters, oblanceolate, 2 to 4 in. long, 1⁄2 to 11⁄2 in. wide, tapering gradually to the base, more abruptly to the short point, dark glossy green above, glaucous beneath, quite glabrous when mature. A slow-growing bush, eventually up to 6 ft high and more in width, flowering in June or early July.

A hybrid of the azalea R. viscosum, crossed with R. maximum, R. ponticum, or R. catawbiense, or with a hybrid involving two of these species. Many crosses of this type were made in the first half of the 19th century, and the resulting hybrids all had flowers in some shade of lilac or purple with a white centre, and many were fragrant. R. periclymenoides (nudiflorum) was also used, with similar results. The plant here described, which may be one of several very similar clones, has also been known as R. odoratum and, wrongly according to Rehder, as R. azaleoides. It agrees well with a hybrid grown in gardens under the name R. fragrans as early as 1835, which was figured in Bot. Mag., t. 3454, as ‘R. maximum hybridum’. Sir William Hooker renamed it thus in the belief that it was the same as the hybrid between ‘the common white glaucous-leaved azalea’ and R. maximum, which was raised by the Rev. William Herbert at Spofforth, and was figured in Bot. Reg., t. 195 (1817), under the name R. hybridum. The present plant and the two depicted in these works certainly agree quite well. Later, in 1843, the name R. fragrans was used by Paxton for an azaleodendron raised by the nurseryman Chandler of Vauxhall some twenty-five or thirty years previously (Paxton’s Mag. Bot., Vol. X, p. 147, t.). The seed-parent was said to have been R. catawbiense, though it may in fact have been R. ponticum. However, this plant was said to be very dwarf and compact, with the leaves ‘a little wrinkled and destitute of much glossiness’. This does not sound like the plant here described, which is more likely to be the same as R. hybridum. That at any rate was Rehder’s opinion (Monogr. Azaleas (1921), p. 190), but in view of the uncer­tainties as to the history and parentage of the R. fragrans of gardens it seems better to adhere to the familiar name.

'Fragrantissimum'

Flowers deliciously fragrant, three or four in each truss; pedicels scaly, glabrous except for a few scattered hairs. Corolla widely funnel-shaped, 3 to 4 in. wide, pure white except for a yellowish tinge in the throat. Stamens hairy at the base only. Style scaly in the lower half, with a green stigma. Calyx variable in size, up to 1⁄4 in. long. Leaves varying from ovate-elliptic and acute to obovate and obtuse, up to 3 1⁄2 in. long, upper surface somewhat rugose, covered at first with brown crisped hairs, later more or less glabrous, dullish medium green, lower surface pale green, scaly, the scales spaced from almost contiguous to about three times their own diameter apart. A tender hybrid of lax habit, from R. edgeworthii crossed with R. formosum, grown outdoors in the milder parts. It is possible that there is more than one clone under the name ‘Fragrantissimum’, since the cross has certainly been made more than once, and the name may have been used in a collective sense. The original ‘Fragrantissimum’ received an F.C.C. when shown by the nurseryman Rollisson in 1868.

The same cross, made by Rinz of Frankfurt-am-Main, is named Sesterianum. This form received an F.C.C. when shown by Messrs Veitch in 1862.

Rhododendron 'Fragrantissimum' at Arduaine, Argyll, UK. 1 May 2024. Image Tom Christian.

Foliage and buds about to open on Rhododendron 'Fragrantissimum' at Arduaine, Argyll, UK. 1 May 2024. Image Tom Christian.

Rhododendron 'Fragrantissimum' at Exbury, Hampshire, UK. 20 April 2015. Image John Anderson.

Rhododendron 'Fragrantissimum' at Exbury, Hampshire, UK. 20 April 2015. Image John Anderson.

Rhododendron 'Fragrantissimum' is notorious for its open, lax growth habit (Lukesland, Devon, UK; 1 May 2024). Image Julian Sutton.

'Francis B. Hayes'

Truss conical with about 16 flowers. Corolla funnel-shaped, 2 1⁄2 in. wide, mauve in the bud, pure white when fully open, with an intense, rather sharp-edged flare of black and maroon on the upper lobes. Medium size. June. (Waterer, Bagshot.) The blotch is very much darker than in ‘Sappho’. F. B. Hayes (d. 1884) was a native of Boston, USA. He had a large collection of rhododendrons on his estate at Lexington, Mass.

Rhododendron 'Francis B. Hayes' in the Valley Gardens, Windsor Great Park, UK, UK. 26 May 2020. Image John Anderson.

Rhododendron 'Francis B. Hayes' in the Valley Gardens, Windsor Great Park, UK, UK. 26 May 2020. Image John Anderson.

'Frank Galsworthy'

Truss compact, rounded, with 16 to 20 flowers. Corolla funnel-shaped, 21⁄2 in. wide, deep reddish purple with a large yellowish flare. Late May or early June. (Waterer, Knap Hill. A.M.T. 1960.)

'Frans van der Bom'

Light apricot orange with darker markings on the upper lobe (Mollis; M. Koster and Sons, 1892).

'Freya'

Double, 11⁄2 in. wide, shell-pink tinged with deeper rosy pink (Rustica fl-pl.; Vuylsteke). A.M. 1897; A.M.T. May 11, 1953.

'Frieda'

Corolla light purple with reddish markings, 11⁄2 in. wide; tube slender. Calyx very small, with obtuse lobes. May. To about 5 ft (a hybrid of R. kaempferi; C. B. van Nes, 1952). Very free-flowering.

'Fujimanyo'

Rosy-purple double or semi-double flowers (R. mucronatum f. plenum (Sims) Wils.)

'Furnivall's Daughter'

Flowers about 15 in a compact, rounded truss. Corolla funnel-shaped, 3 1⁄2 in. wide, lobes broad and rounded at the apex, especially the centre lobe, which is about as wide as long, delicate pale pink with a large flare of dull crimson. Calyx-lobes pinkish, to 3⁄8 in. long, reflexed. Style white with a pink stigma. Leaves elliptic-obovate, up to 61⁄2 in. long, about half as wide. Late April or early May. (Knap Hill. F.C.C.T. 1961.) A seedling of ‘Mrs Furnivall’.

Rhododendron 'Furnivall's Daughter' in the Valley Gardens, Windsor Great Park, UK, UK. 18 May 2020. Image John Anderson.

Fusilier (elliottii × griersonianum)

Flowers about 10 in the truss, on glandular pedicels to 1 in. long. Calyx dark brownish red, shallowly lobed, rather spreading. Corolla fleshy, tubular-funnel-shaped, about 3 in. wide, soft scarlet with darker nectaries. May. Tall and vigorous. Rather tender. (Rothschild. A.M. 1938; F.C.C. 1942.)

Rhododendron Fusilier at Exbury, Hampshire, UK, UK. 30 May 2012. Image John Anderson.

Rhododendron Fusilier at Exbury, Hampshire, UK, UK. 30 May 2012. Image John Anderson.

Rhododendron Fusilier in the Savill Garden, Windsor Great Park, UK, UK. 23 June 2017. Image John Anderson.