Landscape Plants

Broadleaf, evergreen shrub, 3 ft tall, with upright or prostrate branches.  Leaves alternate, simple, narrowly oblong, 2.5-5 cm long, only 5-12 mm wide (has a fragrant odor when crushed), leathery, margin strongly rolled under, the upper surface dark green and rough, whereas the underside is usually covered with reddish-brown wooly hairs.  Flowers are white and conspicuous, in clusters at the end of branches; each is about 15 mm across, with 5 petals.  Fruit is a hairy, oblong capsule 6 mm long.

Hardy to USDA Zone  2       Widely distributed, from Alaska south into the Pacific Northwest (Idaho, Washington and Oregon), and east to every Canadian provence and Greenland, also found in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York and New England.  Mostly found in bogs, muskeg, swamps, stream margins, and tundra.

Rhododendron groenlandicum has customarily have been placed in the genus Ledum.  Now Ledum is considered to be a subsection of Rhododendron. This placement is supported by the presence in this species of comparable multicellular, glandular, peltate scales and phylogenetic analyses of morphological and molecular data.

groenlandicum: of Greenland