For generations it has always been the tradition at Gwavas in New Zealand to pick Rhododendron dalhousiae var rhabdotum to display on the table for Christmas Day. So here it is on the 25th of June in Cornwall flowering exactly six months away from our next Christmas. I haven’t doctored these images with a felt tipped pen or highlighted the green in the flowers. The colour range is a stunning sight with buds opening green, passing through a yellow tint and when nearly over the scented trumpet shaped corollas are pure white. It is an exceptional late flowering Maddenia which loves this position in an old rotten tree stump as can be seen in the lower image. It is often seen as a straggly hanging plant growing epiphytically on cliffs and trees, so is well designed for a dry season which it has to withstand during the winter in its natural habitat.

This particular plant was collected as seed many years ago from the Eastern Himalaya by Steve Hootman and Ken Cox. It is a particularly fine form with up to five flowers in the truss. Very difficult to tell apart from the straight species dalhousiae when the flowers aren’t present, but this variety is generally seen growing further east in the Himalaya Range and blooms a month or so later with these unique flowers which always attract much comment from garden visitors,