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NEW YORK AND WESTWARD
A check of the flowering guide at this stage indicated the need for northern samples of the early species and for more westerly collections of both these and R. calendulaceum. Accordingly on May 26th a route was chosen via the Pocono Mountain area of northern Pennsylvania to the Finger Lake region of central New York for Pinxterbloom and Rose Shell Azaleas — or for what passes as these two species after their too rapid or too sociable post-glacial trek to the Carolina Hills of Ithaca. They were here in abundant bloom, in excellent color and in oft-proved hardiness but both species are a little more like one another than are R. roseum and nudiflorum of Virginia— a fact which has worried both botanist and azalea growers of the north on more than one occasion. Good collections of New York State Pinkshell were also made in the entertaining company of Dr. C. G. (Rhododendron) Bowers in the hills above Binghamton.
Travelling southwest into Pennsylvania the same azaleas were now getting past bloom except for some very showy specimens of R. nudiflorum in the high and late-season plateau area of Somerset County, Pennsylvania. On further into West Virginia R. roseum and nudiflorum were in flower at higher elevations and in the region south of Morgantown and Elkins R. calendulaceum was abundant in the early, large flowered form in shades of yellow to deep orange. Recognizing a possibly parallel situation to that in certain of the native blueberries Dr. W. H. Camp had earlier suggested that orange R. calendulaceum in this evidently tetraploid early flowering phase may quite logically represent a species originally derived from early hybridization between diploid red and yellow progenitors. Towards furnishing proof for this hypothesis an evident need was the field discovery of such suitable red and yellow diploid azaleas, if they should still be in existence. The Oconee Azalea is a red with suitable characters except perhaps, its time of flowering, and at this stage of collecting it was hoped that a small-flowered, fairly late, clear yellow azalea might perchance be found on some secluded slope of these westerly hills of the Virginias, Kentucky or in the Ozarks. Anticipating our story we can say that a late flowering diploid yellow was never found, and probably never existed but the diligent though fruitless search for it covered many square miles of territory and was always interesting. A number of unusual yellows actually turned up in West Virginia, in Kentucky, Georgia and Tennes- see but always they were solitary plants and usually the product of hybridization between a late phase of R. calendulaceum and either R. arborescens or viscosum.
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