Landour, a small cantonment town contiguous with Mussoorie, is about 35 km (22 mi) from the city of Dehradun in the northern state of Uttarakhand in India. The twin towns of Mussoorie and Landour, together, are a well-known British Raj-era hill station in northern India. Mussoorie-Landour was widely known as the "Queen of the Hills". The name Landour is drawn from Llanddowror, a village in Carmarthenshire in southwest Wales. During the Raj, it was common to give nostalgic English, Scottish, Welsh or Irish names to one's home (or even to British-founded towns), reflecting one's ethnicity. Names drawn from literary works were also common, as from those by Robert Burns, Walter Scott, Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson and many others.Like Mussoorie and Dehradun, Landour has long been a center of secondary education. The towns have had several schools and "orphanages" for both European and mixed-race Anglo-Indian children since the mid-19th century. (Hint: "Orphanage" was often a Raj-era euphemism for a school for illegitimate mixed-race children). Also, there were many missionary-run schools, of which the most well-known was (and remains) Woodstock School, founded in 1854 for the children of American missionaries. Practically all of the other prominent schools including Wynberg-Allen School, St. George's School, Mussoorie Public School, Waverley Convent (now CJM) and Vincent Hill (now Guru Nanak 5th Centenary School) are in Mussoorie, not Landour. The Indian Army also runs a primary school in Landour Cantonment.Among natural features in the area, the local peaks are the most prominent. ('Tibba' is a local word for hill/peak). Other than "Old" Lal Tibba and Landour hill themselves (which lie within the Cantonment), there is the hunched, heavily forested Pari Tibba (also called Fairy Hill or Witches' Hill), lurking due south of Woodstock School and due east of Wynberg-Allen School. Once a private hunting estate of the ruling family of Tehri-Garhwal, it was not deforested for that very reason. It is also called Burnt Hill, referring to the unusual number of lightning strikes it has taken over the years, which has given rise to local superstitions and also helped keep it free of humans. The hill remains a popular hiking spot for the local boarding schools, but not having motorable roads is blessedly free of "tourism". Due north of Landour, 16 km (9.9 mi) away as the crow flies is Nag Tibba ('Serpent's Peak'), at 3,022 m (9,972 ft) the highest peak in the local region. It lends its name to the Nag Tibba Range, itself the next-northerly of the five folds of the Himalaya. To the east of Landour are Tope Tibba and the oddly shaped Pepperpot mountain; both are hiking destinations.
Rhododendron arboreum (Tree Rhododendron) is an evergreen shrub or small tree with a showy display of bright red flowers. It is found in Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Rhododendron arboreum (Laligurans) is also the national flower of Nepal.
Its name means "tending to be woody or growing in a tree-like form". It has been recorded as reaching heights of up to 20 m,[2] although more usually it has a height and spread up to 12 m (36 ft) x 12 m (36 ft).
In early- and mid-spring, trusses of 15-20 bell-shaped flowers, 5 cm (2 in) wide and 3--5 cm (1.25--2 in) long are produced in red, pink or white. They have black nectar pouches and black spots inside.
Source: Wikipedia
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