rhododendron

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Any of numerous usually evergreen ornamental shrubs of the genus Rhododendron of the North Temperate Zone, having clusters of variously colored, often bell-shaped flowers.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A large genus of shrubs of the order Ericaceæ and tribe Rhodoreæ.
2. n. It is characterized by a broad, spreading, and oblique corolla, usually with five imbricating lobes; eight to ten stamens, the anthers opening by pores; and a five to twenty-celled ovary with numerous ovules in many crowded rows, the seeds appendaged. There are about 170 species, natives of the mountains of Europe, Asia, the Malay archipelago, and North America, most abundant in the Himalayas. They are commonly shrubs, less often trees, smooth, hairy, woolly, or scurfy, and often with whorled branches. They bear alternate entire leaves, most often crowded at the ends of the branches. Their handsome flowers are commonly borne in corymbs, and have conspicuous, more or less unequal, long, slender, and curving stamens, with long hairs clothing their base. The fruit is a woody pod, splitting septicidally from the apex into valves, and filled with seeds like fine sawdust, each containing a cylindrical embryo and fleshy albumen. Most of the species, and all of those best known, produce their new growths below the flowers, which form a terminal inflorescence destitute of leaves, and developed from a large scaly bud. The leaves in the typical species, forming the section Rhododendron proper, are evergreen and coriaceous; but they are deciduous in the sections Azalea and Tsusia, which include the American species commonly known as azaleas, and produce leaves closely encircling the flowers, or, in Tsusia, mixed with them. The flowers, nearly or quite 2 inches across, often reach in R. Aucklandiæ a breadth of 6 inches. See pinkster-flower.
3. n. [lowercase] Any one of the many species of the above genus, belonging to the section Rhododendron; the rose-bay. The rhododendrons are handsome shrubs, much cultivated for their evergreen leathery leaves and profusion of beautifully formed and colored flowers. The ordinary species of American outdoor plantations is R. Catawbiense, the Catawba or Carolina rhododendron, hybridized with the more tender exotics R. Ponticum and R. arboreum. The Catawba species grows from 3 to 6. rarely 20, feet high, has oval or oblong leaves and broadly bell-shaped lilac-purple or (in culture) variously colored flowers. It is native in the Alleghanies from Virginia southward. It has also been largely cultivated in Europe, and there are hundreds of varieties. The great rhododendron (or laurel), R. maximum, abounds in the Al-leghanies, and is found as far north as Maine and Canada. It is commonly taller than R. Catawbiense, with narrower leaves, and flowers pink or nearly white with a greenish throat. It is a fine species, but much less cultivated than the last; it affords some hybrids. The Californian rhododendron, R. Californicum, resembles the Catawba rhododendron, but has more showy flowers. It deserves cultivation, and has proved hardy in England. The Pontic rhododendron, R. Ponticum, is the most common species of European gardens, hardy only as a low shrub in the northern United States. R. arboreum, the tree rhododendron, is a fine Himalayan species, 25 feet high, with the leaves silvery-white beneath, and the flowers scarlet varying to white. The Lapland rhododendron, R. Lapponicum, is a dwarf arctic and alpine species of both hemispheres, growing prostrate in broad tufts. The Siberian or Dahurian rhododendron, R. Dauricum, a dwarf species, somewhat cultivated, bears its bright rose-purple flowers on naked shoots in early spring.

Wiktionary

1. n. Any of various flowering shrubs in the genus Rhododendron.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. (Bot.) A genus of shrubs or small trees, often having handsome evergreen leaves, and remarkable for the beauty of their flowers; rosebay.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. any shrub of the genus Rhododendron: evergreen shrubs or small shrubby trees having leathery leaves and showy clusters of campanulate (bell-shaped) flowers