University of Virginia Library

IN QUEST OF R. cumberlandense

Planning a return to the interesting azaleas of Black Mountain, we headed northwest for a general Kentucky reconnaissance in an eleven county circular swing to Yahoo Ridge, type locality for R. cumberlandense at the Kentucky end of the Cumberland Plateau.

Within a few miles the first little red and red-orange flowered azalea plants were found on a ridge of Pine Mountain in Letcher County, an azalea which in “best” forms makes a low, twiggy bush, often quite stoloniferous, with glossy green leaves often glaucous beneath and which may or more probably may not be quite the same as the late azalea of Black Mountain. At least on Pine Mountain this is undoubtedly R. cumberlandense of E. L. Braun's description and its smaller, thin-tubed flowers are immediately suggestive of a diploid if the earlier, coarsely large-flowered Flame Azalea is truly tetraploid — a point to be tested by later cytological examination of living plants collected for this purpose.

Leaving Pine Mountain there was an interval of several miles in which only normal R. calendulaceum, past bloom, was seen, but again at higher elevation in Owsley County beautiful little geranium-red azaleas were in shining bloom on a rocky cliff face; they remained with us in Clay County in Laurel County and in fact seemed quite Common throughout these wooded hills of southeast Kentucky, all the way to Yahoo Ridge where the type locality for R. cumberlandense was revisited with the aid of detailed directions kindly furnished by Dr. Braun. Unfortunately the station where Braun had collected some time after logging operations in 1935 was now so rapidly reforesting that the shade was becoming heavy and the azaleas poor — a rotation which was frequently observed on this journey. Again and again the most striking displays of azaleas were in open woodland which had obviously been logged, cleared or burnt a few years previously. Presumably it is the scattered parent plants which burst into bloom with the sudden sunlight, set abundant seed and populate the forest floor before young trees again almost shade them out. In the long view one gains the impression of ephemeral, constantly shifting populations, except perhaps in the case of conservative R. prunifolium of West Georgia or R. speciosum of the Savannah River. By the average plant age the latter species seem to have occupied the same territory for many years. They reproduce sparingly.

As noted in this region perhaps the finest single Kentucky collecting point for the Cumberland Azalea was on a fire tower hill in west central Knox County. The road up this hill was one of those eroded rock and mud affairs which may have been passable to a jeep in good weather but which caused the Chevrolet to rest quietly near the main highway during an attack on foot. The hill was covered with open deciduous forest and towards the top, flowing over the ridges and down the sides of steep gullies was a multicolored riot of azaleas. It must have been a fairly old growth for while some of the flat-topped bushes were only waist-high others were well above eye level, indicating that fair height is attained by this species, at least in partial ,shade. Under these conditions, and compared with normal Flame Azalea, the flowers seemed especially thin-tubed and delicate and with a color luminosity, in the filtered sunlight, which the other wholly lacks. The shades of color were infinitely and widely variable from pale straw yellow through yellow-orange to red, and from salmon through pink to translucent cerise as lively as shot silk. Such diversity was often later found, although a constant leaning toward orange-red and red suggests that the latter may possibly have been the original color of this azalea.

Having confirmed the Kentucky occurrence of this distinct phase of former R. calendulaceum the next obvious task was to determine with some accuracy the limits of its distribution. So far it had been confined to the northern heights of the dissected west escarpment of the Cumberland Plateau so that a logical course was to follow this westerly escarpment southward — and the decision proved

a wise one. Leaving Kentucky on the 9th of June, this same little azalea was followed in comparative abundance into the upland woods of Scott County, Tennessee, into Fentress County, Overton County, Van Buren County, Sequatchie County, both west of the Sequatchie Valley and to the east on Signal Mountain. From here we were headed for Georgia — and the azalea was there too on Fort Mountain in Murray County. Continuing at about 3000 ft. elevation (in contrast to early R. calendulaceum of the lower mountain slopes) it was found towards the summit of Mt. Oglethorpe in Pickens County, and on Branch Mountain in Dawson County. It was on this mountain that a spot of brilliant red, like a scarlet tail-light, shone from the top of a cliff bordering the new highway 136. This little beacon was too fascinating to pass up, even though the only approach lay by way of a long flanking climb. But the reward was a tiny, twiggy, rock-clinging azalea plant 6 inches high, a foot across, gray leaved and covered like a pin cushion with its little red bells — as extreme a form of this R. cumberlandense as one could hope to find and a gem for the garden if its habitat is not unduly altered by cultivation. Traveling northeast into adjacent Lumpkin County the azalea stays with us near Woody Gap. In Union County it is especially abundant on the mountain slopes above Lake Winnfield Scott and not far away, just east of Wolfpen Gap in Vogel State Park, it covers a hillside in a billowy patchwork of clear yellow, orange, orange-red, cerise and all shades of salmony pink to apricot — both colors and plants so reminiscent of those of our fire tower hill in Kentucky that even before making a detailed check of less obvious characters one could scarcely doubt that this was the same Kentucky azalea. But was it? This particular spot happened to have been sought out by design for it is the type locality of R. Bakeri described by Lemmon and McKay in 1937, four years before R. cumberlandense was named by Braun from Yahoo Ridge. Since both descriptions fit these plants with reasonable accuracy it would seem that this gay little bush of the Cumberland Plateau must soon shed its dual personality to be recognized by the single, prior, though less happily descriptive name of R. Bakeri. Here in Georgia its color may tend slightly more toward the yellow and yellow-orange and its flowers may be slightly larger than when it was seen in Kentucky but such differences would seem to be of very minor consequence.