Rhododendron huidongense T. L. Ming

Shrubs, 2–5 m tall; branches more than one year old grayish green or pale brown, glabrous; branchlets stout; young shoots ca. 4 mm in diam., yellowish green, puberulent. Petiole slender, cylindric, 8–20 mm, stellate-tomentose and glandular-hairy when young, glabrescent; leaf blade thinly leathery, ovate-lanceolate or ovate-elliptic, 4–11 × 2–3 cm; base ± rounded; margin recurved; apex acuminate or cuspidate, apiculate; abaxial surface pale green, glabrous; adaxial surface flat, deep green, glabrous; midrib conspicuously raised abaxially, flat, impressed adaxially; lateral veins 12–15-paired, obscure on both surfaces. Inflorescence racemose-umbellate, 5–7(–9)-flowered; rachis 5–11 mm, brownish puberulent. Pedicel 5–11 cm, glandular-hairy; calyx cupular; lobes 5, ca. 1.5 mm, outer surface glabrous, margin ciliolate; corolla campanulate, red, 4–4.5 cm; lobes suborbicular, ca. 1.5 × 2 cm; stamens 10, unequal, 2.5–3.5 cm, filaments glabrous; ovary ovoid, ca. 5 mm, densely brown-tomentose; style 3–3.5 cm, stellate-tomentose to tip, stigma capitate. Capsule not known. Fl. May–Jun.

SW Sichuan.

Mixed forests, evergreen broad-leaved forests, mountain slopes; 2800–3200 m.