Rhododendron haofui Chun & W. P. Fang

Shrubs, 4–6 m tall; bark gray or brownish, exfoliating into thin and small irregular flakes; branchlets cylindric; young shoots greenish then grayish, glabrous. Petiole 15–22 mm, glabrous; leaf blade leathery, lanceolate or obovate-lanceolate, 7–10 × 3–4 cm; base rounded or cuneate; apex acute or obtuse, apiculate; abaxial surface indumentum brownish, 2-layered; adaxial surface shiny, glabrous; lateral veins 14–18-paired, impressed adaxially. Inflorescence a lax racemose umbel, usually 5–9-flowered; rachis 5–10 mm, yellowish pilose. Pedicel 2–3.5 cm; calyx lobes 5, ca. 1 mm, villous; corolla broadly campanulate, white, sometimes flushed with rose, 4–4.5 cm, lobes 5, orbicular, ca. 1.5 × 2 cm; stamens 18–20, unequal, 1.5–3 cm, filaments villous below; ovary cylindric, ca. 6 mm, densely whitish woolly-tomentose; style 2.5–3 cm, glabrous, stigma swollen. Capsule cylindric, 15–25 × ca. 8 mm, brownish woolly-tomentose. Fl. May, fr. Oct.

N Guangxi, Guizhou, S Hunan, SW Jiangxi, E Yunnan.

Thickets in valleys; 800–1900 m.