A Toast

Last month I stood beside a shrub that bore an enormous number of showy flowers. The base of the petals of each flower united to form a funnel of a very pale lilac colour. Into each of the five petals the funnel sent rays of pale lilac which were edged with deeper lilac. This background colour was interrupted on the topmost petal by an area of small blocks of yellow orange that had spread to touch the neighbour on either side and converged on the lip of the funnel.

From the shrub came a soft hum as bees worked one flower after another. They returned day after day, honey bees and bumble bees with pollen baskets white and bulging. By mid-July most of the flowers have withered, but the few that remain still attract insect pollinators.

And the name of the shrub? Rhododendron, the genus of plants which is mentioned on the same website as the earthworm-devouring New Zealand flatworm. Rhododendron ponticum, considered to be a forestry weed in lime-free areas and an alien invasive species, is still regarded as foreign although it was brought here as long ago as the eighteenth century.

Until recently I was under the impression that there were only a few species of rhododendron and that all lilac-flowered species were invasive. Loathe to question the experts, I watched with disbelief as the lilac-flowered rhododendrons in our garden stubbornly refused to invade and left invasion to elder, raspberry, blackberry, Veronica, ash and St John’s wort.

Yesterday I consulted the Reader’s Digest Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants and Flowers. Far from there being only a few species of rhododendron, the number exceeds 500 and includes the azaleas. Perhaps the definition of species was different in 1987.

Along with the bees I propose a toast to this attractive genus of plants, of which at least 499 species pose no threat to the countryside, or at least no threat compared to those rampantly invasive species, buildings and tarmac. Please raise your glass of nectar.