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Rhododendron kiusianum Makino

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Peter Norris, enabling the use of The Rhododendron Handbook 1998

Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Rhododendron kiusianum' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/rhododendron/rhododendron-kiusianum/). Accessed 2024-12-05.

Genus

Other taxa in genus

Glossary

Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Rhododendron kiusianum' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/rhododendron/rhododendron-kiusianum/). Accessed 2024-12-05.

Dwarf, much-branched shrub, 0.6–1 m; young shoots covered with adpressed flattened red-brown hairs. Leaves of one kind, deciduous, 0.5–3 × 0.2–1.5 cm, oval-obovate, apex acute, both surfaces, and petioles, covered with stiff red-brown hairs. Pedicels covered with stiff red-brown hairs. Flowers 2–3 per inflorescence; calyx 2–3 mm; corolla usually rose-pink, occasionally rose to deep purple, funnel-shaped, 15–20 mm; stamens 5; ovary densely covered with stiff red-brown hairs, style glabrous. Flowering May-June. Royal Horticultural Society (1997)

Distribution  Japan Kyushu

Habitat 600–800 m

RHS Hardiness Rating H5

Conservation status Least concern (LC)

† cv. ‘Chidori~~.~A selection with white flowers. Award of Merit 1977, when shown by the late Collingwood Ingram.

var. kiusianum

Leaves 0.5–2 × 0.2–1cm, oval to obovate.

Awards AM 1977 (Capt. c. Ingram, Benenden, Kent) to a clone ‘Chidori’; flowers white. AM 1981 (Crown Estate Commissioners, Windsor) to a clone ‘Mountain Gem’; flowers in clusters of 2–3, corolla red-purple. AGM 1993

var. sataense (Nakai) D.F.Chamb.

Leaves 1–3 × 0.5–1.5cm, ovate-elliptic.

Intermediate between var. kiusianum and R. kaempferi and may have arisen as a hybrid. Hybrids with this parentage occurs in the wild and selected forms have almost certainly been cultivated for several hundred years, giving rise to at least some of the cultivars described under R. obtusum and also those known as the ‘Kurume’ azaleas. R. stenopetalum and R. ripense are also involved as parents in some of these cultivars. R. saisiuense Nakai is apparently a dwarf form of R. kiusianum that originated in Korea.

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