New Rhododendron species discovered in South China

NANNING -- Chinese researchers have discovered a new species of Rhododendron in South China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and named it Rhododendron yuanbaoshanense.

The findings have been published in a recent edition of the journal Phytotaxa, according to the forestry and landscaping bureau of Guangxi's city of Liuzhou.

Rhododendron yuanbaoshanense, with a height of 1 to 2 meters, features broadly ovate to orbicular leaves with a cordate-auriculate base and pink to pale pinkish-purple, funnelform-campanulate to campanulate corollas, which distinguish it from other species within the genus Rhododendron.

In 2021, researchers at the Liuzhou Forestry Research Institute found an undescribed species of Rhododendron during a plant resource survey in the vicinity of Guangxi Yuanbaoshan National Nature Reserve, said Deng Yihui, a researcher with the institute and a co-author of the paper.

Subsequently, the Liuzhou institute collaborated with other research institutions, including the Kunming Institute of Botany under the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Guangxi Institute of Botany, on a two-year research project, and confirmed that the species was different from previously described Rhododendron species.

Deng said that the Rhododendron yuanbaoshanense is the first new species of Rhododendron from Guangxi to be published in more than 20 years.

Boasting ornamental value, over 80 individual plants of the new species have been discovered near the Yuanbaoshan nature reserve, which are distributed in the evergreen deciduous broad-leaved mixed forest at elevations of 1,200 to 1,450 meters, Deng added.