GREAT RHODODENDRON; ROSE BAY (Rhododendron maxi mum, Linn.). Shrub to 35 feet. Evergreen shrub or small tree with broad head of twisted limbs. Buds large, scaly, terminal contain flower clusters; axillary, small, contain leafy shoots. Sap considered poisonous. Bark reddish brown, scaly; limbs gray, at first rusty hairy. Wood hard, pale brown, heavy, close-textured. Leaves narrow-oblong, plain, pointed at apex, and tapering to short, stout petiole; thick, dark green, leathery, evergreen, pale beneath, 4 to 10 inches long.
Flowers in large umbels in June; perfect, bell-shaped, pink, white or purplish, shaded, with spotted corolla throat. Fruit a woody, 5-celled, many-seeded capsule. Dist.: Shaded sit uations, in peat or sandy loam, New Brunswick to Florida; Gulf States to Louisiana; west to Lake Erie, but rare north of Pennsylvania; Arkansas southward. Forms jungles on mountain slopes in East Tennessee and North Carolina.