Rhododendron tsai
"Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring,
And all the flowers that in the springtime grow."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
At the foot of a naturally stunted alpine fir we have the rare dwarf evergreen Rhododendron tsai which stands a bit less than a foot upright in full morning sun at the mouth of a shade-plant corridor. Its ten year height can be two feet or 30 inches, so it is very slow growing, & will always be a tiny shrub.
It's most charming feature is its teency-tiny round leaves, smaller even than the leaves on its tiny-leafed near relative R. hippophaeoides.
R. tsai is an alpine species from Yunnan & Sichuan, China, but our specimen is more precisely R. tsai "affinity" because it is not quite the pure species. It is thought to be a wild-occurring intermediate type that almost certainly has R. hippophaeoides in its heritage, & is known only from the Sichuan (Szechwan) side of the Yangtze River.
Ours came to us from the Rhododendron Species Federation Botanical Garden, & is derived from specimens collected as seed in Daliang Shan, Sichuan, on a mountain slope above 11,150 feet.Hardy to minus five degrees F., it prefers full sun but will tolerate partial shade. Moist rich soil that drains well is a must. It would not likely adjust to warmer zones but is ideal for the Pacific Northwest coastal region & Puget Sound.
The majority of the Yunnan & Sichuan dwarf rhodies, of which there are quite a number, bloom in the color range of violet & purple. In keeping with this common trait, R. tsai has pale lavender-blue blooms, which are long lasting on the shrub. The flowers are less than a half-inch width in clusters, smaller even than for R. hippophaeoides, & could charm the pants off a bee.
The photo at the top of the page was taken April 16th, 2003, the morning the very first flower buds opened, with many other buds waiting a couple more days to burst forth. The photo is a bit larger than life size, & really conveys the charm of the small leaves. The second photo was taken at month's end. The leaves intruding into the portrait from above are from a clump of Spring Vetchling (Lathyrus vernus).
For more photos of this small shrub, see the
R. tsai page of the Rhododendron Blossoms Gallery.
R. tsai page of the Rhododendron Blossoms Gallery.