HYDRANGEAS 189 
panicles. The fertile flowers are small, but others develop their sepals 
enormously, at the expense of the sexual organs, and consequently are 
barren. In a normal flower the petals are four or five ; calyx five- 
toothed; stamens eight or ten; styles four or five. The species are 
chiefly Asiatic, but a few come from North America; the latter are more 
hardy, but less ornamental than those from Asia. 
The Hydrangeas as garden plants are comparatively 
modern, H. arborescens, the species with which we have been 
longest acquainted, having been introduced from Virginia in 1736, and H. 
radiata from the same locality fifty years later. Both these species have 
greenish white flowers ; but in 1790, Sir Joseph Banks made us acquainted 
with a pink-flowered species by his introduction of H. Hortensia from 
China. This, in one or other of its varietal forms, has been popular in 
cultivation ever since. In more recent years new varieties of this species 
have been imported from Japan, in addition to those raised by selection 
in our own gardens, and new species have been discovered. Amo 
these are H. paniculata (1874), H. Thunbergii (1874), H. petiolaris (1876), 
and H. scandens (1879)—all from Japan. The likeness subsisting between. 
these showy balls of sterile blooms and those of Vibwrnum, or Guelder 
Rose, is very striking ; and one is not greatly surprised to learn that the 
same causes produce similar results in Orders as widely separated as are 
SAXIFRAGEZ and CApPRIFOLIACER, 
HYDRANGEA ARBORESCENS (tree-like). Stems 4 to 6 
feet. Leaves oval, inclined to heart-shaped, the upper ones — 
lance-shaped, coarsely toothed, pale and covered with minute down beneath. 
Flowers greenish white, in rather flat corymbs, and with an agreeable 
scent ; July and August. 
H. Horrensia (a former name of the genus). Common Hydrangea or 
Hortensia. Stems 2 to 5 feet high. Leaves broadly oval, saw-toothed. 
Flowers large, pink, white or blue, according to the nature of the soil, 
variable in size and number of parts, but disposed in large globular 
corymbs ; fertile individuals few ; April to September. Plate 90. There 
are several varieties of this species, among them var. Inndleyi (includ- 
ing the garden vars. roseo-alba and cwrulescens), with the outer flowers 
only radiate, white, rosy or blue; var. otaksa, with nearly all the flowers 
sterile; var. stellata, flowers yellowish green, turhing to rose-colour, all 
sterile; var. variegata, leaves variegated red or yellow. 
: H. PANICULATA (panicled). Somewhat similar, but leaves often in 
threes, downy ; flowers small, white, in a dense panicle a foot long; June 
to September. When well-grown all the flowers are sterile and pure 
white, in an enormous panicle. : 
1—z 
History. 
Principal Species. 
