Spring in Vancouver arrives with all those predictable photographs of cherry blossoms, camellias (usually misspelt with one l) and about magnolia bushes (which are in reality trees) and are some of the oldest flowering trees in our planet.

Little is ever mentioned about those dependable and mostly healthy rhododendrons. In our garden, the first botanical entity to flower besides the bulbs is my lovely species rhododendron, Rhododendron racemosum. Today my scan is of the plant about a week past its prime. The second image is from two years ago in its prime.

Rhododendrum racemosum