From two tributaries of the upper South Fork Edisto River there is a strange form of R. arborescens known. The plants look like ordinary R. arborescens but bloom much earlier, here in South Carolina as early as mid April. The two Creeks are McTier Creek and Bulls Branch. We wondered if we could locate the interesting plants there and if we could find more habitats along other Creeks of that region. So we spent two whole days looking along numerous Creeks in that area including South Fork Edisto River itself. We stopped at a total of 27 sites and searched the stream banks and their surroundings there. Sometimes we found R. canescens, very often we found R. viscosum, some with fuzzy, others with slick buds. Some of the R. viscosum were in flower, others had already or not yet flowered. In two places at McTier Creek only we were able to find early blooming R. arborscens. One location had quite a number of plants, the other just a single specimen. Due to bad light conditions there are no pictures of this single early R. arborescens. And along a number of creeks we did not find any azaleas at all. These were two exhausting days. Maybe we missed some plants because they were of course not in bloom at this time of year. We have decided to come back in mid April! In the gallery I just show some of the places we checked.
