Upright to compact growing evergreen shrubs.The lower surface of the ovate to oblong-elliptic leaves is gray to brown in color and densely covered with brownish scales.The flowers (mid-to late spring) are typically purple to reddish-purple or ruby red, but can also be pink, mauve or white, often with green or red spots.They are widely funnel-shaped with long exserted stamens.A floriferous, hardy and easy species in cultivation.Extremely variable in the wild, this species is found over a wide area of C China, including Sichuan, Hubei, Shanxi, Gansu & Henan.It occurs in forests and on cliffs from 5,000 to 14,500 ft.
1964/177(Benthamianum Group)RBGE (-10\R1\6).Purple flowers with red-purple flecks.
1964/180(Pseudoyanthinum Group)Wisley(-10\R1\6).Deep wine-red flowers.A really tough species useful for screening.
1964/209‘Chief Paulina’James(-10\R1\6).Deep red-purple flowers with darker flecks on this selection of Pseudoyanthinum Group.
1973/072(Pseudoyanthinum Group)Esch(-10\R1\6).Large, upright and bushy relative of R. augustinii with wine-red flowers with darker flecks in mid-spring.Very touch and floriferous species useful as a screen.
1974/068H. Sm#12920:GoteborgBotanical Garden:A. Kehr(-5).Perhaps ahardier form of the species collected in Sichuan (Szechwan) and succeeding in S Sweden.
1975/305‘Chief Paulina’Barto:CHP(-5).A hardy Triflorum, represented here by an American selection of more compact habit, ovate leaves and royal-purple flowers in late April.
1975/313(concinnum var. pseudoyanthinum)CHP(-5).form with ruby-red flowers.
1984/010(concinnum var. benthamianum)ARD(-5).
1991/078SB#8309:BERG(-10\F1\6).Easy and vigorous hardy species with deep purple to reddish or pinkish funnel-shaped flowers (mid-spring).This clone grown from seed collected wild in Sichuan, China.One of the hardiest of the Trifloras.
concinnum var. benthanianum
1964/177(-5).An attractive medium sized species from the RoyalBotanic Garden, Edinburgh.Covers itself with lavender purple flowers.
