Chirita, Briggsia and other genera in the Gesneriaceae The Gesneriaceae (African Violet family) is a large and diverse group of plants in which I have recently taken an interest. Specifically, I have been studying and collecting the various relatively hardy genera to be found growing in the temperate and subtropical regions of the Sino-Himalaya, often […]
Rhododendron ochraceum SEH#080 This red-flowered species is considered by many to be one of the finest of the myriad of new Rhododendron introductions in the modern era of plant hunting. It was introduced into general cultivation in 1995 when Peter Cox and I found it in the Jin Pin Mountains of southern Sichuan Province, […]
Rhododendron huanum Another fantastic new rhododendron introduced from my first expedition to China is the species R. huanum which occurs in scattered populations in the mountains of southern Sichuan, northeastern Yunnan, and adjacent northeastern Guizhou. Although this species has long been known to botanists (it was officially described in 1939), it was never successfully introduced […]
Paeonia mairei SEH#058 This is an herbaceous (dies back to the ground each autumn) species native to the mountains of SW China which is where I found it in the autumn of 1995 while exploring a deep ravine full of wondrous plants. These included giant trees of Rhododendron argyrophyllum with huge, thick trunks, masses of interesting […]
Rhododendron valentinioides SEH#235 This species was first collected and introduced into cultivation from the Laojun Shan, a range of mountains near the city of Wenshan in southern Yunnan Province, China, just north of the Vietnam border. Peter Cox and I were on our very last day in the field at the end of a very […]
Rhododendron sinofalconeri SEH#229 From the mountains on either side of the Yunnan-Vietnam border comes the newly introduced, yellow-flowered, big-leaf Rhododendron sinofalconeri. This species has two very different forms from two separate areas, although each form more or less matches the type description. The form from southern Yunnan north of the Red River was first introduced […]
Agapetes pyrolifolia SEH#1511 This Rhododendron relative represents just one of the many, and definitely one of the finest, species in this large genus that we have introduced into cultivation. Agapetes can be thought of basically as epiphytic, evergreen blueberries with flashy flowers that occur primarily in the temperate rainforests of the Sino-Himalaya. This species was […]
