Large, widely spreading evergreen shrubs, often forming flat-topped trees with age. The attractive leaves are oblanceolate to obovate in shape and up to 10 inches in length with a thick and wooly brown to red-brown indumentum on the lower surface. The flowers (early to mid-spring) are quite variable in color, ranging from cream to yellow, pink, apricot and crimson. One of the finest of the hardy big-leaves. Native from NE India to upper Burma, SE Tibet and NW Yunnan, China where it occurs primarily in forests from 10,000 to 14,500 ft.
1965/335 'Brodick' (+5\R1\4). Deep lavender-pink flowers with a darker blotch on this famous 1963 Award of Merit form with a deep red-brown indumentum. Choice and rarely offered.
1982/031 (arizelum) Forrest#21861:WER:UBC (+15).
1993sd334 SIN (0?). Seedlings from seed collected in the wild. Beautiful large leaves.
1998sd417 CCHH#8140 (+5\R1\4). A large, shrubby, big-leaf species with reddish-brown indumentum on the undersides of the attractive leaves. These are grown from my collection of seed at 11,150 ft. in NW Yunnan. The plants in this region were mostly deep pink in bud opening to pink and fading to white.
2000/498 These are grown from my collection of seed at 11,800 ft. in NW Yunnan. The plants in this region were mostly deep pink in bud opening to pink and fading to white with a few pale yellows.
#251sd2001 DGEY#034 These are grown from my collection of seed at 10,220 ft. on the Salween/Irrawaddy divide in NW Yunnan, China. Most of the plants observed in bloom in this region were deep pink fading to white. These are beautiful foliage plants with deep red-brown indumentum - true arizelum. (+5\R1\4) RSBG
