Rhododendron ponticum; 'rhododendron'

Found primarily in woodlands and along hillsides, grows especially in acidic soils. Rhododendron ponticum can from dense thickets excluding almost all other plants, this meaning that it is often seen as a pest for conservation managers. 

Rhododendron is an evergreen shrub with larger leaves with an oval shape 8-20cm long. The flowers are bell shaped and purple being 4-6cm across and with petals.

As Rhododendron is very invasive people are often weary of using it, one of the few uses I can find for this plant is to be used as a rootstock. As Rhododendron dense root system is used to graft another plant type on the top so the new plant has a mature root system and increase the chance of survival. This idea could is very useful and increases the change of plants surviving the movement process from nursery to its desired planting spot.

This plant was found in Platfields Park in a practically wet area, with areas of standing water around. It was dense and very tall you can see that these plants can become dominating as nothing was growing underneath.