I posted this under the Rhody and Azalea Forum, but it's really dead over there. This forum gets more eyes, so perhaps someone here would recognize this? I know there are hundreds upon hundreds of azalea varieties out there. This one is evergreen. Blooms mid azalea season (it's wrapping up right now in Mid-Atlantic). It has a white to very pale lavender flower with slightly darker lavender edges. Not a harsh demarcation, though. It also has some brown speckles in the throat. It's really quite nice! Average flower size, maybe up to 2 inches. Any ideas?

This whole question of provenance and adaptability can, at times be complicated, and plantings can yield unsuspected results. A famous case in point is with white pine. About 60 years ago the Forest Service planted some white line along a small river near Parsons, WV. The seed was from NC. those trees have grown so spectacularly that everyone who knows about them is stunned. Much, much better than white pine from local seed sources, and better than any white pine anywhere in either Va or MD. A while ago in these forums, resin, in a discussion of Norway spruce, desfribed a case where the migration back into a formerly glaciated area through a kind of back door from the east, resulted in a local strain that grew much more slowly than strains from other European sources to the west. Many trees have extremely large genomes. The genome for Norway spruce, for example, is about 10 times larger than that for a human being. It was long thought that much of this Norway spruce gene material was "junk" DNA. But now, one theory is that this DNA is not "junk," but is DNA that can be activated by epigenetic factors, and in combination with these factors, account for the extreme adaptability of the species. Well, yes, I am describing things I have only a slight understanding of. What I would say is that the value of local sources for trees is variable and difficult to predict. I agree that it could be a safe choice, but may not be the best choice. But, if I were to give any advice on the current question, I would not be too strict about a really local choice, but I would avoid a source from a hardiness zone too extremely different from your own. But even then, who knows. Oikos tells me that the fastest growing bur oaks that he has for sale are those from a source in OK. They are located in lower Michigan. So, what to do??? --spruce

I have done 'Beni Otake', its the only one I have tried, nothing special was done. Al

What is the flower size? There's nothing much for scale, and many, many cultivars look like that. If really large bloom, possibly Lady Claire, but again, there are so many.