Common names: Purple Laurel, Rose Bay, Catawba Rhododendron.

R. catawbiense grows in the wild in the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia to Georgia and Alabama, occasionally eastward to near the coastal plain. They are evergreen shrubs or small trees. Leaves are thick, leathery, dark green above, pale green beneath, shaped oval or elliptic, 2" - 5" long.

Flowers held in an umbel-like cluster, colored rose-purple to lilac, rarely white, with olive-green spots on upper lobe, not fragrant. Flowers bloom in May and June. Calyx lobes broadly triangular or semicircular, less than 1/3" long. Corolla rotate to campanulate shape, up to 2 1/3" across. Ten stamens; filaments purple, anthers white. Purple style about as long as stamens.

Cold hardy to -25°F ( -32°C). Widely used by hybridizers to create cold-tolerant hybrid varieties.

Photo by Rhododendron Species Foundation (ac77-620)