59 6 



HYDRANGEA. 



THE ENGLISH FLOWER GARDEN. 



HYDRANGEA. 



branches, large, broad, firm leaves, and 

 larger flowers with somewhat fleshy 

 sepals ; under cultivation it becomes more 

 showy, passing into H. Belzonii. In 

 woods and on the shady banks of rivers 

 it grows taller with slender stems, pointed 

 leaves, and much smaller flowers. In a 

 very fertile soil, a stout plant with toothed 

 sepals in the barren flowers, which are 

 commonly of a blue colour. This is the 

 true H. Buergeri of Siebold and Zuccarini's 

 Flora Japonica, and the H. japonica 

 ccerulescens of Regel. Sometimes it 

 produces white or rose-coloured flowers, 

 and then it is the H. roseo-alba, as figured 

 in the Flore des Serres. These varia- 

 tions are all beautiful, but perhaps not 

 constant. 



() H. Hortensia japonica. This is 

 the H. japonica of Siebold and Zuccarini's 

 Flora Japonica, and the H. japonica 



Hydrangea quercifolia. 



macrosepala of Regel's Gartenflora. 

 It is exactly like acuminata, save that the 

 flowers are tinged with red, and the 

 sepals of the barren flowers are elegantly 

 toothed. 



(c) H. Hortensia Belzonii. A 

 short stout plant, with beautiful flowers, 

 the inner sterile ones being of an indigo- 

 blue, and the enlarged sterile ones white, 

 or only slightly tinged with blue, and 

 having entire sepals. There is a sport of 

 this in which the leaves are elegantly 

 variegated with white. This was raised 

 by Messrs. Rovelli, of Pallanza. 



(d) H. Hortensia Otaksa. -- This 

 has all the flowers sterile and enlarged. 

 A very handsome variety with rich dark 

 green leaves nearly as broad as long, and 

 large hemispherical heads of pale pink or 

 flesh-coloured flowers, very fine when well 

 grown. 



(e) H. Hortensia communis. This 

 is the old variety with rose-pink flowers, 



commonly cultivated in European gardens. 

 It differs from the last in being perfectly 

 glabrous in its longer, less-rounded 

 leaves, and in its deeper-coloured 

 flowers. 



(/) H. Hortensia Azisia. This is 

 not in cultivation, but it differs remark- 

 ably from all of the preceding varieties in 

 the sterile flowers, which have a very long, 

 slender calyx tube. 



(g) H. Hortensia stellata. The 

 chief character of this variety is in the 

 flowers, which are all' sterile and double. 

 The variety in cultivation has pink flowers, 

 but they are described as being either 

 pale blue or rose, finally changing to 

 a greenish colour, and distinctly net- 

 veined. 



The white variety Thomas Hogg is a 

 very fine one, now widely cultivated. 

 Most of the above-named deserve the 

 attention of all who have soil and climate 

 suited to these shrubs. 



H. paniculata (Plumed Hydrangea}. 

 A shrub or small tree. According 

 to Maximowicz, the only Japanese 

 Hydrangea which becomes a tree. It 

 grows as much as 25 ft. high, with a 



The Plumed Hydrangea. 



dense rounded head and a straight 

 trunk 6 in. in diameter. But it more 

 commonly forms a shrub a few feet high, 

 bearing enormous panicles of flower. 

 With the exception of H. Hortensia, it 



