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I was given a seedling but it didn't prove to be very sturdy in the garden. Trees and shrubs online says: "R. molle, once better known as Azalea sinensis, is common in Chekiang, China, and also occurs in other provinces of eastern China. According to Wilson it grows among coarse grasses and shrubs and in thin pinewoods, and makes a small, sturdy shrub 2 to 5 ft high. Fortune is very eloquent of its beauty as seen wild in China, especially on the hills about Ningpo, where, he wrote, ‘the yellow Azalea sinensis seemed to paint the hillsides, so large were the flowers, so vivid the colours’. Fortune sent seeds in 1845, but there had been an earlier introduction to Loddiges’ nursery, in 1823. In this century, seeds have been collected by Wilson near Ichang, in W. Hupeh, where the species is near its western limit, and also by Forrest, who found it growing in a lamasery garden (F.25477). Another reintroduction was by Rock under his no. 59226, from the foot of the Litiping range in Yunnan, but it is not clear whether the plants were wild or cultivated. This sending is of interest, since plants raised from it were used by Lionel de Rothschild in the breeding of the Exbury strain of the Knap Hill azaleas. R. molle is hardy, but lacks stamina and has always been rare in gardens." |
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| 4th May 2017 | ||