An evergreen tree up to 60 ft high, or a shrub sometimes no more than 6 ft high; stems and leaves densely coated when young with a bronzy pink indumentum. Leaves leathery, dark green, very variable in shape and size, oblong, ovate, or elliptic, usually acuminate at the apex, rounded to cordate at the base, 3 to 6 in. long, 11⁄2 to 23⁄4 in. wide, occasionally longer and mote slender, glabrous above when mature, coated beneath with a buff-coloured tomentum of stellate hairs; petioles stellate-downy, up to 13⁄8 in. long. Inflorescence a terminal many-flowered panicle, borne in summer. Flowers creamy white (sometimes rose-coloured, yellow, or dull crimson on plants seen by Forrest in Yunnan). Calyx about 3⁄16 in. long. Corolla about 1⁄2 in. wide; petals spreading-erect, 1⁄2 in. long, including the claw, which is contained in the calyx. Staminal column 3⁄4 to 13⁄8 in. long. Capsules pear-shaped, 13⁄8 in. long, 1 in. wide. Bot. Mag., t. 9258.
Native of the E. Himalaya, upper Burma, S.W. and W. China, and Siam; described from the Sikkim Himalaya in 1874, but probably not introduced until Wilson sent seeds from W. Szechwan, where the species is at the northern extremity of its range. The seeds were collected in 1910 from a tree – the only one seen – growing by a stream on the descent from the Panlan-shan, and were distributed by the Arnold Arboretum. Among the gardeners who received seeds was J. C. Williams of Caerhays, and it was he who provided the flowering and fruiting material depicted in the Botanical Magazine in 1929; the species had first flowered at Caerhays five years previously. R. pubescens was collected by Forrest on many occasions in Yunnan.
So far as is known, only one mature plant of R. pubescens grows in the open in the British Isles and that is the remarkable specimen at Trewithen in Cornwall, which measures 38 × 43⁄4 + 33⁄4 ft (1971). The large tree at Caerhays was killed in the winter of 1962-3. R. pubescens received an Award of Merit when shown by Sir Henry Price, Wakehurst Place, Sussex, on July 27, 1954. The original plant there no longer exists, but there is still a small example in the Heath garden there.
R. pubescens should survive most winters in a sunny, sheltered place in southern England, but is unlikely to really thrive except in the mildest parts. It deserves to be grown more frequently for the vivid colouring of its young foliage and for its interesting flowers.