Photo: Daderot, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain / CC0. Unmodified apart from resizing.
Colour
yellow, orange
Region
Japan and temperate East Asia
Season
spring
Shape
cluster
Identification
A deciduous shrub 50–200 cm tall. Oblong to oblong-lanceolate leaves 5–11 by 1.5–3.5 cm. Yellow funnel flowers flecked dark red, several in a terminal cluster, before or with the leaves. The whole plant is poisonous; the Chinese names say sheep stagger after eating it. Rarely seen in cultivation but the parent of many yellow-flowered hybrids.
Habitat
Hill grassland, scrub and open woodland from sea level to 2,500 m, in sun; sheets of gold on the hills of the lower Yangtze in spring.
Distribution
Native to China (the Yangtze provinces and southward) and Japan; common on the hills of eastern, central and southern China, scarce in mainland Japan (the related Rhododendron japonicum is commoner). Absent from Singapore.
Season and behaviour
April and May, with or just after Sims's azalea; about two weeks.
Photography tips
These are the FilmAnalysis editors' notes, not content from the sources.
A yellow azalea on a hillside is rarer than the red ones, and in sheets it compresses to gold with a long lens; the dark red flecks want a head-on macro. Yellow is truest under cloud and bleaches in sun. Poisonous: do not touch the nectar, wash your hands, and keep children from picking it.
Photographic styles
Golden azaleas on the hills; flecked macro.
Similar species
Rhododendron japonicum (Japan, orange-red, closely related); Sims's azalea (red); yellow azalea is another name for this species.
Related badge
None yet. No validated photo recognition exists for this species, so no badge is tied to it: a name in the encyclopedia is not evidence in a photograph.
The illustration is original FilmAnalysis artwork. The photograph is from Wikimedia Commons; its licence and author are under it.
Why it is listed: this species comes from the Flower checklist (GBIF backbone and Wikidata verified). Names follow the GBIF backbone and Wikidata; the facts follow the sources below; photo recognition is not offered.
