Speakers Biographies

It is pleasing from time to time to listen to our own stalwarts, both members of high order on our executive. Bill McMillan has served our Society in many roles: he belongs to the Princess Abkhazi Tray coterie, and has just recently spread his rhododendron wings abroad. Dean Goard, our 10 minute speaker and current President, has set aside his prominence in the world of philately to search for the rare and sprightly specimens in our high country.

Bill McMillan’s ‘Odyssey’
At the November meeting we were treated to rhododendron adventures in Yunnan through the legs and eyes of our own Vice President, Bill McMillan, when he was with sixteen members of the Rhododendron Species Foundation 2005 group. Their mandate was to seek out as many of the one hundred known rhododendrons in Yunnan Province.

Bill took hundreds of digital pictures. The push was already on for the executive to purchase a Digital Projector, so it was decided to proceed and have Bill use it for the first time. The Instrument is a PG-XR10X Projector which will have a 25' VGA Extension Cable [M/F], a MacIntosh adapter connector and a used Hard Shipping Case with wheels and telescopic handle. Our thanks go to Liz Keay for all the research she did in getting the best projector for the size of our meeting hall. After seeing Bill’s presentation with the detail and colour quality, it was the right choice for our club.

Bill began with two maps to show us where the trip was located. The Kunming Botanical Institute where the trip began, provided two botanists, three drivers, a bus and two jeeps to traverse some rough roads. It was amazing that such beautiful cobbled roads could exist in such earthquake prone zones and where so much had to be rebuilt after the 1996 Magnitude 7 earthquake, when so much was destroyed.

The Yulong Xueshan area is a relatively dry belt with oaks and pines, where R. yunnanense and R. decorum, as well as choice garden plantings which we eagerly seek such as: Fritillaria, Arisaema, Iris ruthenica, Primula forestiii, Andosace,Roscoea,

Red Paeonia, Cypripedium macranthum, purple Meconopsis delavayi and Pleione were in abundance.

West and south to Laaojun Shan [shan meaning mountain] we were treated to R. yunnanense plants in abundance throughout the hillside, then R. fictolacteum trees, wardii with pinkish buds which some open to yellow with a red blotch, but others were a cream colour. Meadows covered with mauve R. fastigiatum, R. lapponicum which were being browsed by cattle, R. beesianum flowers in trees plus the most gorgeous Primula sonchifolia.

The group stayed in a lodge at the 3900 m elevation where there was no running water and no heat for much of the time. Their cuisine for the evening included yak meat and local mushrooms. But the treat was seeing a forest characterized by R. roxieanum ssp. oreonastes and ssp. roxieanum. Seeing them side-by-side was a picture worth a thousand words with the oreonastes form being long and thin with rust coloured thick indumentum. R. rubiginosum abounded while Bill was delighted to photograph his favourite species, R. oreotrephes, in full flower. I personally liked the R. uvarifolium with its ash grey plastered indumentum, its white suede-like new growth enhanced by a white clematis growing up near it.

Next on to Cangshan where the group was treated to R.trichocladum, neriiflorum with its red large calyxes, and the unique pink flowering R. cyanocarpum contrasted against the forest of Abies delavayii with their blue purple round male and elongated female cones. The views of the steep mountainsides showed pagodas and temples, some of which had stood for a thousand plus years. One had the real feeling of ancient China, except perhaps for the foreign signage!

After driving over wheat on the roads, spread out for trucks and buses to help with the threshing, the groups moved on through Wayad pass where R. genestierianum and R. sidereum grew tall and strong. There, Bill photographed a butterfly which did not look real but rather like an exquisite jewel.

On to the Salween River where they stayed in a modern hotel in Liuku, built since Steve Hootman was last in the region. There the lovely deeply indumented, rounded leafed R. mallotum grows but the trails through to find the towering R. basilicum were treacherous with thick Gaultheria, where they found the trail by feeling with their feet!

The Gaoligong Shan had a wealth of rhododendrons: Glen Jamieson held a huge branch of R. protistum, which an ethnic Chinese had cut and left on the ground. Much rhododendron wood is cut for firewood. Here the scenery of waterfalls, creeks, meadows and forests is breathtaking: trees of arizelum, sinogrande, neriiflorum, anthosphaerum, glistrum, and R. edgeworthii, the epiphyte at its best; meadows of Cardiocrinum giganteum and more arisaema, of which the bulb is used for food, gave us a wonderful feast!

Along the Gongshan-Dulong Road there was an interesting picture of how the vaccinium store water in dry times, with bulbets along their root system. Here were the most incredible foliage pictures of R.megacalyx, with beet-like leaves with red veins, and R. nuttallii with snakeskin-like leaves.

Heading south again, along the Salween River is the hole in the wall formation in a mountain peak, interesting to Bill with his background as a geologist. Then on to Caojian where R.calostrotum gigha, bright yellow R.sulfureum from subsection Boothia, R. facetum with its star shaped hairs [rufous stellate tomentose!] and at the end of the alphabet R. zaleucum with both white and pink forms, making colour not a great indicator of species.

Bill summed up by saying the trip did not meet expectations: comfortable hotels, minimal rain, few snakes and mosquitoes, no leeches..….. “Bummer!” He showed us in his excellent presentation the camaraderie, the seventy-nine rhodos out of the sought-after hundred, and excellent leadership of Steve Hootman, all of which had made it a lifetime experience. Thank you so much, Bill, for sharing the adventure with an appreciative audience.

Rhodo Albiflorum

by Dean Goard

In his ten-minute talk, Dean set the stage carefully for an exposition of the second native species rhododendron of BC. Piqued by its unsung reputation in higher circles, a representative posse of VRS’s finest decided to challenge this understatement.

Rhodo Albiflorum has been rated 2/ 2/ 1 in the categories ‘Flower/ Plant & Foliage/ Performance’. According to Greer, the average for all other listed plants were 3.04/ 2.92/ 2.90. Of Greer’s 98, only five had a listing of 2 or less on ‘Performance’. According to the Rhododendron Seed Foundation [as reported in the always accurate Newsletter], plants grown from the seed from higher elevations have met with dismal success. “Why”, Dean asked, “would anyone in their right mind want to find R.Albiflorum?”

Firstly, he was tempted by his modest mountaineering experience from an earlier life. Secondly, Agnes and Dave Lynn have celebrated a passion for wildflowers with pictures of the flora of the San Juan Ridge and they invited the Propagating Group to join them in a hunt for this unloved plant. So, off [and up] they went on an early July weekend and we were shown a photographic depiction of this quixotic venture.

It was dramatic: a group photo of the intrepids – Ken Webb, Keiko Alkire, Bonnie Moro, Dave & Agnes Lynn and Dean; the precipitous Kludhak trail; Agnes discovering; Dave snapshotting [twice]; the trail again; Agnes, then Ken in the meadow; Keiko; Bonnie; an arty tree shot; a small white flower; the Sun; pink heather; coral root; and finally the long sought treasure – a fragile, pinkish-white specimen of R .albiflorum! The quest for an upgrade of its reputation goes on……..

Dean’s conclusion: “It’s the people that really matter in life. Joining a club is a way of meeting people out of the ordinary. This club has many extraordinary people and we all benefit from that.”