Rhododendron

“ But they must multiply by many times the few specimens they see in an English park or hot-house, and must realise that as cowslips are in a grassy meadow, so are these rhododendron trees in the Sikkim Forest. Red, mauve, white, or yellow, they grow as great flowers among the green giants of the forest and brighten it with colour. The separate blossoms of a rhododendron tree cannot compare in beauty with the individual orchid. There is in them neither the deep richness of colour nor wonder of form nor sense of deeply matured excellence. ”

“ The valley maintains its width; but the nature of the landscape changes; cultivation ceases, and the forest descends to the road. Thickets of rhododendron are seen for the first time—the tree-like bushes with which we are familiar in England and the large flowers. The brakes were a mass of bloom; a little higher we met the azaleas; the yellow azalea and the pale mauve petals of the rhododendron were in the splendour of their latest blossoming. In the lush forest we noticed the beech tree, the walnut, and the maple, the hazel, the oak and the elm ”

“ The rhododendrons were then in full flower, and the hills were one blaze of colour. We were always going up and up, and as we ascended, the deep crimson rhododendron flowers of Naini Tal gradually faded to rose-colour, from rose-colour to pale pink, and from pink to pure white. It was a perfect education travelling with Colonel Erskine, for that shrewd and kindly old Scotsman had spent half his life in India, and knew the Oriental inside out. ”

“ And the rhododendron buds of the previous autumn were swelling and showing pink along their cone-like edges, under the light brown of their sticky outer covering. Soon the roadside would be glorified by their splendor. Cleared fields made patches of vivid green against the serried trunks of the trees in the woods, and the breeze blew down, pure and vivifying from the mountains. ”

“ In some places our eye rested with delight upon the rich green of the chestnut and beech, in others all vegetation seemed wholly to cease. The rhododendron (Note P.) flourishes here in perfection; it grows where few other shrubs or plants are able to exist, braves the severity of the keenest blasts of winter, and affords firing to those cottagers who cannot easily procure other wood. Its blossoms are of a lovely pink, and from this circumstance it is called the "rose of the Alps." ”

“ The almost incredible variety of plants, and the lavish profusion of their growth, produce an effect perfectly enchanting. I really can hardly conceive a higher enjoyment than a botanical tour among the Alleghany mountains, to any one who had science enough to profit by it.
The magnificent rhododendron first caught our eyes; it fringes every cliff, nestles beneath every rock, and blooms around every tree. The azalia, the shumac, and every variety of that beautiful mischief, the kalmia, are in equal profusion. ”

“ The rhododendron is a wood of the jungle. The strings within the frame-work of the loom are in a tangled knot. It is true that I sit on thy lap. But do not therefore cherish the hope that thou canst take any other liberty. ”

“ Besides Lilies, a few other flowering plants suitable for the Rhododendron walk are: white Foxgloves, white Columbine, white Epilobium angustifolium, Trillium, Epimedium pinnatum, Uvularia grandiflora, Dentaria diphylla and Gentiana asclepiadea. In the same region, and also partly as edgings to the Rhododendron clumps, suitable small bushes are Rhododendron myrtifolium, the Alpenrose (R. ferruginium) and the sweet-leaved Ledum palustre.
When the garden comes on the sunny side of the wood the planting would be quite different. ”

“ The more difficulties are to be encountered the more licence is given to the plant in dealing with them, and we shall hardly ever find a rhododendron shoot fulfilling its splendid spiral as an oak does its simple one. ”

“ The rhododendron thrives, its black glossy leaves a symbol of richly nourished power. The devil's club flaunts aloft its bright berries, and poisonously wounds whomsoever has the misfortune even to touch its great prickly leaves, nearly as big as an elephant's ear ”

“ The grounds had completely changed their character by now: the turnstile marked the end of cultivation, and the little path, no longer graveled, wound through the wild woodland. Here and there a boulder blocked the way; the undergrowth became dense; great clumps of fern and rhododendron sent out their heavy, rank odors. ”

“ Nor should the Rhododendron be forgotten as a subject for our gardens. When raised from layers or from seed, it takes quite kindly to our climate. Indeed, the plants at “Floraire,” M. Henry Correvon’s charming garden near Geneva, come from England—a fact that will sound much in line with that of living at Brighton and receiving one’s fish from London! This anomaly, in the case of the Rhododendron, is due to the great difficulty of acclimatising the plant to the Swiss plains. When, however, it has once been acclimatised in England it will transplant to Switzerland with the greatest success. ”

“ Rhododendron possesses astringent narcotic properties. It produces hard close-grained compact wood sometimes used in turnery and for fuel. Many of the species are cultivated in gardens for the beauty of their large and conspicuous flowers. ”

“ Owing to this they can, when ordinary care is used, be transferred to new quarters without losing a leaf, not only when potted, but also when planted out in the open ground. Hard forcing must be avoided, but the Rhododendrons may be brought on gradually in gentle heat. Under this treatment they must be well supplied with water, and liberal syringing is also beneficial. The wide range of colouring in the Rhododendron family gives an opportunity for getting almost any shade desired.
Rhodotypus kerrioides.—A beautiful Japanese shrub, reminding one of a Kerria, but the flowers are white. ”

“ I cannot remember ever to have seen in Switzerland a successfully transplanted native plant of Rhododendron, even though, as is frequently the case around mountain hotels, it has been a question of moving it only some few yards from where it was growing wild. These wild plants have a strong objection to being tamed. But in England’s humid climate it is quite easy to cultivate, and if fields are to be added to our rockworks the Rhododendron must have a place in them—a place around the solitary rocks, a place with the Daphne and the shrubby Honeysuckles. ”

“ That verdant spot where the little trees left to their own sweet will, were so interlaced as to form an impenetrable mass was a perfect place for love passages. She went cautiously and noiselessly along the paths which had almost disappeared under their carpets of grass, intersected in many places by brambles and branches of trees. Sometimes a little clump of irises obstructed her path and she was obliged to jump over it, or else a rhododendron, stretching its boughs to embrace a camellia in front, had formed a bower so low that she was obliged to bend a good deal to get along. ”

“ In less favorable locations the plant is sometimes less than five feet high. The wood is one of the strongest and hardest that grows and weighs 39 pounds to the cubic foot.
The rhododendron has no such clever trick of showering its pollen upon insect visitors as the mountain laurel, but, like the laurel, it protects itself by a sticky substance below the flower from ants and crawling insects which do not transfer pollen. The bee and other insect friends of the rhododendron find its nectar very gratifying, but the honey they make from it is said to be poisonous. ”

“ A Spiritual Sense. According to authority, there are about 186 species of Rhododendron in the world. The greatest number of varieties inhabit India and China, and they are important plants in the Caucasus, where often—as with Rhododendron ponticum—they cover the entire side of a mountain. In Switzerland there are but two varieties, R. ferrugineum and R. hirsutum, and they are to the Swiss Alps what the Heather is to the Scottish mountains (with, however, this difference—the Alps have also the Heather) . ”

“ And everywhere were the rhododendrons. It was too late for them to be in bloom; so they were not as lovely as they are sometimes. When you get into the rhododendrons, you cannot see up into the tree branches, because the rhododendron branches are tangled about you and above you with their stiff green leaves. They make the woods seem dreadfully black and gloomy; but when they are in bloom it is another matter.
[44]
The lady and the guide went on and on under the twisted rhododendrons, and Baby Mitchell lay fast asleep under the lady’s belt. ”

“ That is it, sir. The rhododendron has an aversion to lime in any form. A man will not thrive on hay, nor a horse on mutton chops. Each plant has its own proper soil in which it thrives. Give it other soil and it languishes and dies. Excuse me, sir, for a moment. ”

“ Even the familiar Laurel, good as it is when suitably placed, and used not too freely, is constantly scathed and disfigured in damp or low-lying localities. For the same reason, it is doubtful whether Rhododendrons should be planted within range of our windows. Most of them, in severe weather, frightened before they are hurt, put on a melancholy air and droop of leaf which is apt to send a shiver through any shrinking mortal whose vitality is already low enough.
The bare boughs of winter, on the contrary, are never depressing. They sleep, but it is not the sleep of death ”

“ Her colour was hardly heightened, and though her voice rose little above its former pitch, its sweet accents were perfectly audible everywhere. The picture would have been enough for her forfeit.
"The prettiest character of a flower that I know, is that of a little species of Rhododendron. It is one of the least handsome, to look at, of all its family; its beauty is in its living. It grows on the high places of high mountains, where frost and barrenness give it no help nor chance; but there, where no other flower ever blossoms, it opens its flowers patiently and perseveringly ”

“ The claim of the rhododendron to favour is rather in the collective quantity and mass of flowers so that by sheer weight of numbers it can produce its effect of colour. In some of the upper valleys the mountain slopes are clothed in a deep green mantle glowing with bells of scarlet, white, or yellow. ”

“ Next to it in abundance is Rhododendron majus, now in full flower, and forming a beautiful object, Rhododendron minus ceases with the barrener tracts. Magnolia is very conspicuous; Pinus cedroides common towards the pagoda; Eurya not rare, Gaultheria nummulifolia continues throughout, Valeriana violifolia, Oxalis acetoselloides, Bryum, Butia purpurea, Sambucus, Saxifraga of Bulphai, and another species, Bambusa microphylla, Swertia, Luzula, Thibaudia orbicularis, Primula Stuartii, occurred between the commencement of the ascent and the pagoda; at between 7,300 to 7,600 feet, Magnolia odoratis. ”

“ These are, foremost of all, Andromeda Catesbæi, then Lady Fern, and then the dwarf Rhododendron myrtifolium. The main spaces between the young bushes I plant with Cistus laurifolius, a perfectly hardy kind; this grows much faster than the Rhododendrons, and soon fills the middle spaces; by the time that the best of its life is over—for it is a short-lived bush—the Rhododendrons will be wanting all the space. Here and there in the inner spaces I put groups of Lilium auratum, a Lily that thrives in a peaty bed, and that looks its best when growing through other plants ”

“ I saw likewise some good kinds of greenhouse plants, as well as many rare species of the Rhododendron tribe; the Rhododendron campanulatum, a fine specimen; a collection of orchideous plants is also forming in this nursery garden. There are several small hothouses for the growth of Cape and tropical plants, which are also cultivated for sale; but the space of ground is much too limited, as well as confined by houses to do justice to a collection of hardy species. ”

“ In the common large country garden rows of hollyhocks, as against a stone wall, or marking out the long walks, are most ornamental. Dahlias also are very good in groups. Phlox, that much-abused plant, is also pretty in masses. Asters too, of many varieties, delight the eye, and are easy of culture. In trying to raise shrubs, why not take [Pg 95] the American wild pink, or azalea, the laurel and the rhododendron, and, by studying up their habits, capture them?
The best soil for the rhododendron is a peat containing much sand and much vegetable fiber. ”

“ Rhododendron tribe, characterized by capsular fruit, seed with a loose coat, deciduous petals and anthers without appendages. It consists mainly of the great genus Rhododendron (in which Azalea is included by recent botanists) , which is chiefly developed in the mountains of eastern Asia, many species occurring on the Himalayas. Dabeocia, St Dabeoc’s heath, occurs in Ireland. ”

“ There are two distinct varieties of scenery with both of which rhododendrons consort magnificently. One is heavy, boggy ground, deep, dark, and oozy, under large trees, into the recesses of which they can settle, spreading out in all directions, re-rooting themselves as they choose in the black earth; their flowers catching the divided sunrays, and turning every hollow place into a pool of colour. Another, and a yet more ideal place is a steep hillside, provided that it is furnished with boulders, and provided that the said boulders are not of limestone. ”