Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Ericales > Ericaceae > Rhododendron > Rhododendron maximum

Rhododendron maximum (great laurel; rosebay rhododendron)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Rhododendron maximum — its common names include great laurel, great rhododendron, rosebay rhododendron, American rhododendron and big rhododendron — is a species of Rhododendron native to the Appalachians of eastern North America, from Alabama north to coastal Nova Scotia.
View Wikipedia Record: Rhododendron maximum

Attributes

Bloom Period [1]  Mid Spring
Drought Tolerance [1]  High
Fire Tolerance [1]  Medium
Flower Type [2]  Hermaphrodite
Frost Free Days [1]  5 months
Fruit/Seed Abundance [1]  Low
Fruit/Seed Begin [1]  Spring
Fruit/Seed End [1]  Summer
Growth Form [1]  Multiple Stem
Growth Period [1]  Spring, Summer
Growth Rate [1]  Slow
Hazards [2]  The leaves are poisonous; Ingestion can cause convulsions and coma; The pollen of many if not all species of rhododendrons is also probably toxic, being said to cause intoxication when eaten in large quantities;
Leaf Type [2]  Evergreen
Lifespan [1]  Perennial
Propagation [1]  Bare Root, Container, Cutting, Seed
Root Depth [1]  18 inches (46 cm)
Seed Spread Rate [1]  Slow
Seed Vigor [1]  Low
Seeds Per [1]  4999990 / lb (11023100 / kg)
Shape/Orientation [1]  Semi-Erect
Specific Gravity [3]  0.5
Structure [2]  Shrub
Usage [2]  Wood - fine-grained, hard, heavy, strong, rather brittle; It weighs 39lb per cubic foot; Used for tool handles and as a boxwood (Buxus spp.) substitute in engraving;
Vegetative Spread Rate [1]  None
Flower Color [1]  Red
Foliage Color [1]  Dark Green
Fruit Color [1]  Brown
Fall Conspicuous [1]  Yes
Flower Conspicuous [1]  Yes
Height [2]  11.48 feet (3.5 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [1]  USDA Zone: 5 Low Temperature: -20 F° (-28.9 C°) → -10 F° (-23.3 C°)
Light Preference [1]  Mostly Shady
Soil Acidity [1]  Very Acid
Soil Fertility [1]  Infertile
Water Use [1]  Moderate
Screening - Summer [1]  Dense
Screening - Winter [1]  Dense
View Plants For A Future Record : Rhododendron maximum

Protected Areas

Emblem of

West Virginia

Predators

Lyonetia latistrigella[4]
Neotoma magister (Appalachian woodrat)[5]
Pseudococcus maritimus (grape mealybug)[6]
Stephanitis rhododendri (rhododendron lace bug)[7]
Tupiocoris rhododendri[7]

Range Map

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3Chave J, Coomes D, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Swenson NG, Zanne AE (2009) Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Ecology Letters 12: 351-366. Zanne AE, Lopez-Gonzalez G, Coomes DA, Ilic J, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Miller RB, Swenson NG, Wiemann MC, Chave J (2009) Data from: Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Dryad Digital Repository.
♦ 4HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 5Neotoma magister, Steven B. Castleberry, Michael T. Mengak, and W. Mark Ford, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 789, pp. 1-5 (2006)
♦ 6Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 7Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0