Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker (1817–1911)

A particularly handsome botanical portrait of Rhododendron campbelliae, showing two dense flower heads. One is predominantly pale, and the other is delicately flushed rose-pink above a cluster of elongated leathery leaves. Separate botanical details below illustrate elements of the flower and reproductive structures.

The plate originated in Joseph Dalton Hooker’s pioneering botanical exploration of the Sikkim Himalaya. Rather than illustrating specimens known principally from European gardens, Hooker based the publication upon observations and drawings made during his government-supported botanical mission to the eastern Himalaya.

Rhododendron campbelliae was one of the imposing tree-form rhododendrons encountered by Hooker. Contemporary descriptions associated it with trees reaching approximately forty feet, illustrating the extraordinary scale and diversity of Himalayan rhododendrons.

Hooker’s name Rhododendron campbelliae was first published in this work at plate 6 in 1849. Modern Kew taxonomy now treats the name as a synonym of Rhododendron arboreum subsp. cinnamomeum.

Reference:

Kew Science, Plants of the World Online — records Rhododendron campbelliae Hook.f. as first published in Rhododendr. Sikkim-Himalaya, Part I, plate 6 (1849).