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Rhododendron farrerae
[Synonyms : Azalea farrerae, Azalea squamata, Rhododendron cinereoserratum,
Rhododendron farreri, Rhododendron farrerae var. leucotrichum]
FARRER’S AZALEA is a deciduous shrub. Native to Hong Kong and southern China, it has
pale to dark purplish-pink flowers with slender stamens bending forward.
It is also known as Dingxian dujuan (Chinese), and Lilac azalea.
Farrerae honours an English plant collector, traveller and author, Reginald John Farrer (18801920) who made many botanical expeditions to southern Europe and the Far East in the
company of friends. While dogged by hospital operations during his childhood, he
developed his interest in the plant world when he roamed the Yorkshire Dales around his
home. During his early teens he re-designed the rock garden on the family Ingleborough
estate and in his late teens (when at Balliol College, Oxford) he assisted in the
construction of one at St. John’s College too. In his twenties he made two long trips to
the East; the first to China, Korea and Japan and the second to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).
These provided material for his first publications which initially would be interspersed
with some less successful poetic dramas and novels, and with a brief flirtation with
politics. Throughout this period his love of plants continued to flourish and he made
almost annual trips with friends to the mountains of Italy, Switzerland and France. He
also established the Craven Nursery Company which was destined to claim first prize for
alpine plants at the 1912 RHS Chelsea Exhibition. From 1914 for two years he travelled
in north-western China and in Tibet and on his return to England was declared medically
unfit for military service which led to a brief period at the Ministry of Information where
he worked for John Buchan (1875-1940), the celebrated novelist {who, amongst his
many other accomplishments, was also a publisher, a Unionist politician and a governorgeneral of Canada). In 1919 Farrer set out for the highlands of Upper Burma where he
would eventually die, some authorities speculate, from diphtheria. His works include My
Rock Garden (1907) and The English Rock Garden (1919).
In south-eastern China this azalea is widely associated with the Chinese New Year as a symbol
of good fortune.