University of Virginia Library

THE PLUMLEAF AZALEA

It being now the 12th of July a reference to the collecting map indicated that the late red azalea of Georgia, R. prunifolium, should be in flower. Its type locality is near Cuthbert in Randolph County, southwest Georgia, and in this direction the Chevrolet was turned from the hillsides, the rhododendron forests and the delightful climate of Highlands, North Carolina. The only detour made in crossing Georgia was in search of the Sweet Azalea at the southernmost part of its range in Upson County of central Georgia. The search consumed nearly a full day but the azalea was at last found in splendid quantity and, strangely enough, in full bloom in spite of this low elevation so far south. In pure white flower it followed the banks of a small Moccasin-infested tributary of the Flint River, the same azalea by all outward characteristics as its counterpart of 800 miles away in West Virginia.

Fort Gaines, Georgia, is a sleepy little town on the banks of the Chattahoochie, the river separating Georgia and Alabama which, 75 miles farther south, joins the Flint River (from Upson County)

to become the Appalachicola of northern Florida. Both Fort Gaines and Cuthbert, twenty miles northeast, are situated in a region where the clays of the rising Coastal Plain have been cut into deep gullies by small meandering streams. The sides are often so steep that the only access is by wading the stream, and one is almost forced to do this (in spite of the Water Moccasins) by the dense cat-briar tangles of the wooded surroundings.

It is in these gullies of a few Georgia and Alabama counties, generally centering on Fort Gaines, that the Georgia late red azalea, R. prunifolium, is at home. Here, on steep slopes, wherever enough light has penetrated to permit flowering, it is found in round-topped bushes up to twelve feet high in reds, red-oranges, apricots and orange-yellows. The color range is not far different from that of the Cumberland Azalea and after seeing the latter for so long one is impressed by the similarity between the two. They both have those characteristic ridged flower tubes in the bud stage; they are both late, both red, and in more detailed morphology have little to show reason why they could not be quite logically and quite possibly regarded as high and low elevation derivatives from a common ancestor. By its lateness of bloom and geographic isolation R. prunifolium has not had the opportunity for recent gene exchange with other species. Thus it lacks the aggressive adaptability of its mountain counterpart, so that now, even in its chosen locale, young seedlings are seen so infrequently that one wonders how much longer it may persist without more effective protection than it now receives.

The type locality for this species, 2 1/4 mi. N. E. of Cuthbert, is now a golf course with no azaleas evident but a good collection was made in a small ravine 1 1/4 miles distant. The visit to Fort Gaines also provided an opportunity to discuss mutual interests with that authority on southern azaleas, Mr. S. D. Coleman, who not only showed me his own unusual plants, so well tended and arranged, but who also provided a valuable lead to a curious little May-flowering white azalea of Central Georgia and Alabama, hitherto overlooked. The next day or so was spent in following this low growing plant, now past bloom, as far as Mississippi. On a basis of characteristics which lie somewhere between R. viscosum, serrulatum and oblongifolium, it has not yet been taxonomically assigned as a previously described entity and should certainly be credited to Mr. Coleman if a new designation is warranted.