Preface

The aim sand parts of North America. The stress is very much on the species: thi
s is not a pecies of the genus of this volume is to provide an accurate means of
identification for those Rhododendron that are cultivated in Britain, western E
urope,
manual for the identification of hybrids. The knowledgeable rhododendron grower
looking at this statement might well think, What s the good of that? A very large p
roportion of the rhododendrons cultivated in the areas mentioned are, in fact, h
ybrids,
and what s really needed is some means of accurate identification for these.
The assertion that many of the rhododendrons cultivated in these areas are hybri
ds
is, indeed, correct (except for the contents of a few botanic gardens), and it i
s also true
that an accurate means of identifying them would be extremely useful. However, w
ell
over 30,000 hybrids and cultivars have been developed during the last 250 years,
many
of them deliberately and knowingly, others accidentally; and, being long-lived w
oody
plants, many of them, even the older ones, are still in existence. In order to u
nderstand,
identify, and name these hybrids, it is necessary first to understand the specie
s (and subspecies, varieties, and, indeed, the overall classification of the gen
us) which occur in the
wild. This cannot be overstressed: the wild species form the foundation on which
the
hybrids are raised, and if they are not understood, the hybrids cannot be unders
tood.
While this book does touch on some significant features of the hybrids, their id
entification is a matter of considerable difficulty which will ultimately requir
e a very large, separate reference. The production of a reliable list of hybrids
and their parents is an ongoing process; reference should be made to Fletcher (
1952) and the supplements to it
published annually since 1952 by the Royal Horticultural Society.
In this book, the accurate identification of the species (and the groups subgenera
, sections, and subsections between the genus and the species) is made possible
through standard taxonomic forms: keys and descriptions. The layout of these fol
lows
normal practice, though the descriptions are broken down into individual charact
eristics so as to make comparison of one with another as easy as possible. In ad
dition to the
standard dichotomous keys, 2 other identification tools are provided: identifica
tion
tables and character lists. I hope these will help gardeners to identify species
accurately
while soothing any fears about using scientific k This book does not, of course,
include the many new species of Rhododendron which
have been described in recent years but which have not yet found their way into
cultivation in Europe. For illustrations of many of these, see Flora of China Il
lustrations, volume 14
(Raven et al. 2005; Science Press, Beijing).
Acknowledgements
This book represents the fruit of many years work on the genus, which I first bec
ame
interested in while working in the early 1960s at Ness Botanic Gardens (Universi
ty of
Liverpool). This interest continued when I returned to the Royal Botanic Garden
Edinburgh in the 1970s. So many people have helped me to an understanding of the
genus
that it is impossible to list them all I hope they will accept this general thanks
for the
assistance they have given me. In particular, though, I must thank the staff of
the Royal
Botanic Garden Edinburgh, especially those in charge of the living collections,
herbarium, and library. The photographs in this book are of plants growing in th
e Edinburgh
garden, and I am extremely grateful to Debbie White and Frieda Christie for taki
ng so
much trouble to get exactly the pictures I wanted. Also I must thank Ida Maspero
for
her help in dealing with the publication of the book. Anna Mumford and Mindy Fit
ch of
Timber Press have been constantly helpful and extremely patient in waiting for t
he completed typescript. The online library catalogue of the Royal Botanic Garde
ns, Kew, has
made the job of searching the literature much easier, and I am very grateful for
its existence, though I can t acknowledge, because I don t know, those who did all
the work to
make it possible.
10 PrefaceIntroduction to Classification
and Identification
The classification to tions of old facts are accepted. The process is entirely o
pen: anyone with the ry and is constantly modified as new discoveries are made o
r new interpreta- of plants is a process rather than an object. It exists in his
interest or knowledge can make a contribution by publishing a paper which has cl
assificatory content, and this content then becomes available for acceptance or
rejection. Of
course, to be published in a reputable scientific journal, such a contribution w
ould have
to be peer reviewed; any efforts that are not serious or properly informed would
be cut
out. Furthermore, even after publication there is no official stamp of approval
which
states that the work is accepted. It remains there, in publication, for others t
o pick up and
use as they think fit. Thus, at any moment, classification is like a snapshot of
what taxonomists currently accept; it is a changing, unmoderated consensus. Con
tributions may
lie fallow for 10, 20, 30 years or more and then be picked up and incorporated i
nto the
current consensus, while others which have been accepted as important for years
may
be dropped. The fact that this process is entirely unmoderated (I am not thinkin
g here of
nomenclature, which is governed by regularly altered [improved?] international r
ules)
comes as a great surprise to most gardeners, who tend to think there is some aut
hority
which rules that this plant belongs to species A, which is distinguished from spe
cies B,
C, D, and so forth in particular ways, and which belongs to genus X and family Y an
d
that s what is accepted. The realisation that this is not the case is often a shoc
k at first,
though most find it ultimately liberating.
The History of Classification
In order to have a working understanding of the classification of a group of pla
nts, it is
necessary to have some idea of the way the current situation has come about. The
 history of the classification is based on other histories: the history of explo
ration and the
finding of new taxa, the history of taxonomic thought, and, with plants like rho
dodendrons, which are important to gardeners, the history of their introduction
into horticulture and their propagation thereafter. (The history of rhododendron
s in gardens is dealt