THE SAXIFRAGA FAMILY. 221 



SILVER LEAF. DOWNY OR SNOWY HYDRANGEA. NINE 



BARK. 



Hydrangea radiata. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Saxifrage. U'/iiU-. ScfiitU'ss. M issoiiri to North Caro/hia. Juiti-.July. 



Flozuers : of two sorts growing in large, terminal compound cymes; the interior 

 and fertile ones, small, nunieruus, with calyx tube four or five lobed. Petals: 

 four or five. Std/nens : eight or ten. The sterile or marginal fiowers few and radi- 

 ating in a border, their calyxes having three or four obovaie, colcjured lobes. 

 Leaves : simi)le; opposite, with slender petioles; ovate, taper-pointed at the apex 

 and rounded or cordate at the base; serrate; bright green and glabr(nis above, and 

 covered underneath with a thick white tomentum. A shrub tour to eight feet 

 high, the twigs either smooth or pubescent. 



In the mountains of the Blue Ridge and westward where this beautiful 

 shrub is found, it grows sometimes closely in thickets, or again hangs from 

 the hard packed soil of steep road-side banks. It was in seed when I saw 

 it there, and the showy sterile flowers which earlier in the season had been 

 raised as a signal to its insect ambassadors, hung dry and faded. But as the 

 early autumn breeze waved upward its still beautiful leaves and thus showed 

 their silver-grey linings as soft and sheeny as velvet, it produced a startling 

 effect among the surrounding verdure ; the little flecks of red just beginning 

 to be seen, and the gleams of yellow from foxgloves. Almost exclusively 

 the mountaineers call the plant, "nine bark." A name significant of the 

 way its bark peels off in little layers. This they collect and steep for use in 

 various medicinal ways. 



H. qiiercifblia, an unusually showy and beautiful shrub, is a native along 

 the rocky banks of streams from Florida and Georgia, westward. Its 

 flowers are produced in a dense terminal thyrsus giving thus more the effect 

 of the cultivated heads than does any other of the wild hydrangeas. In 

 fact, for development under cultivation the species is a great favourite. The 

 leaves are very handsome with from three to five well formed lobes and 

 are covered underneath as is densely the young growth with a heavy tawny, 

 or light coloured fuzz. Late in the autumn the sterile flowers turn to pur- 

 ple in drying and the foliage becomes a deep wine colour. 



H. arborescciis, wild hydrangea, is better known than the two mentioned 

 species and extends further northward than any other one of the genus. 

 As a spreading shrub of from five to ten feet high it grows along the hanks 

 of rocky streams, and throws out ovate, pointed leaves which are bright 

 green and but slightly downy underneath. In general there are few showy. 

 sterile flowers surrounding the inflorescence, although so variable at times is 

 the shrub that they compose nearly the whole head. 



