If you find TSO useful, please donate to our May Appeal 2026! Donate

Hydrangea flowers
 

May Appeal 2026

Please help keep TSO growing!

IDS Trees and Shrubs Online depends on generous donations to continue to make reliable information on hardy woody plants freely available to everyone, everywhere.

If you haven’t already, please consider donating to our May Appeal. If everyone who uses TSO during May 2026 gives just £10, we would cover our costs for a whole year, enabling us to accelerate our work!

Donate

Rhododendron mariesii Hemsl. & E.H.Wilson

TSO logo

Sponsor

Kindly sponsored by
Peter Norris, enabling the use of The Rhododendron Handbook 1998

Credits

New article for Trees and Shrubs Online.

Recommended citation
'Rhododendron mariesii' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/rhododendron/rhododendron-mariesii/). Accessed 2026-05-18.

Family

  • Ericaceae

Genus

Other taxa in genus

Glossary

Credits

New article for Trees and Shrubs Online.

Recommended citation
'Rhododendron mariesii' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/rhododendron/rhododendron-mariesii/). Accessed 2026-05-18.

Shrub or small tree, 1–3 m; young shoots covered at first with adpressed yellowish hairs, later glabrescent. Leaves in whorls of up to three, at the ends of the branches, 3–7.5 × 2–4.5 cm, ovate-lanceolate, apex acute, lower surface glabrescent; petioles glabrous. Pedicels villose. Flowers 1–2 per inflorescence, appearing before the leaves; calyx minute; corolla rose-purple, upper lobe with flecks, funnelform, 25–30 mm; stamens 10; ovary yellowish grey-villose, style glabrous. Flowering April-May. Royal Horticultural Society (1997)

Distribution  China C, S & E Taiwan

Habitat 200–1,300 m

RHS Hardiness Rating H3

Conservation status Least concern (LC)

Closely allied to R. farrerae (q.v.). Royal Horticultural Society (1997)