The Hydrangeas 



their cultivation and dispersal. In the East it had long 

 been a very favourite shrub for Chinese and Japanese 

 gardens. Hence it was called Hydrangea hortensis. A 

 curious confusion has, however, arisen over the specific 

 name. Lamack, the French botanist, named the whole 

 genus " Hortensia" after a Madame Hortense Lepanto, 

 the wife of the celebrated Parisian clockmaker; so that 

 sometimes the name of the shrub is given as H. hortensis 

 and sometimes as H. hortensia. It was not named after 

 Queen Hortense, daughter of the Empress Josephine, as 

 is often asserted, and therefore there is no real ground 

 for making it a political badge of the Second Empire 

 as was done at one time. 



In its usual garden form it is unknown in a wild 

 state, just as the garden guelder rose, or snowball tree, 

 is a very different plant from the wild guelder rose in 

 which the snowball blooms are replaced by flat clusters 

 of many small fertile flowers, surrounded by a few only 

 of the showy sterile florets that compose the whole of 

 each snowball. Indeed, our garden Hydrangea is some- 

 times called the " Chinese Guelder Rose." 



The common Hydrangea cannot be said to be 

 generally hardy, though in the south of England it 

 grows luxuriantly enough to be twice the height of a 

 man. Its leaves are a long oval with slightly toothed 

 margins, somewhat pale green in colour and noticeably 



veined. They fall in the early autumn. 



227 



