Flowers vary from cream to yellow to pink, spotted with a blotch on the top petal.

Silvery Rhododendron, Arboreum, foliis amplis subcoriaceis obovato-oblongis acutis in petiolum crassum attenuatis planis utrinque glaberrimis subtus argenteis costa nervisque prominulis, bracteis deciduis dense sericeis, pedunculis brevibus crassis puberulis, calyce brevissimo obscure lobato, corolla (inter maximas) alba late campanulata, limbi segmentis breviusculis bilobis, staminibus 10, filamentis glabris, ovarii pubescentis loculis subsedecim, stylo flexuoso crasso, stigmate dilatato.

Leaves very beautiful in the leaf-buds, erect and silky, at first enveloped in large scales, so closely imbricated and so large, as to resemble the cones of some species of pine, the outer or lower scales broad and coriaceous, glabrous, coloured (reddish-brown) the innermost ones oblong-spathulate, pubescent.

When fully developed the leaves are among the largest of the genus, six inches to a foot long, three to five inches broad, coriaceous, nearly plane, glabrous, full green above with parallel rather closely placed nerves, beneath silvery white, with the costa and nerves prominent.

In the silvery underside of the foliage, but in nothing else, this resembles R. arboreum; while in the much divided limb of the corolla, the ten-celled ovary, the stout flexuose style and large stigma, it approaches R. Falconeri, but only in those particulars.