SAXIFRAGE FAMILY. 135 



P. Gordoni&nus, cult, from Oregon, is seemingly a variety of the last, 

 veiy tall, and the large flowers appearing at midsummer. 



P. hirstltus, Hairy M. Wild in N. Car. and Tenn., sparingly cult. : 

 slender, with recurving branches, the small ovate and acute sharply-toothed 

 leaves hairy, and beneath even hoary ; the small white flowers solitary or 

 2-3 together at the end of short racemose side branchlets. 



5. DiEiITTZIA. (Named for one Dmtz, an amateur botanist of Amsterdam. ) 

 Fine flowering shrubs of Japan and China, with numerous panicles of white 

 blossoms, in late spring and early summer ; the lower side of the leaves,. the 

 calyx, &c. beset with minute starry clusters of hairs or scurf, 



D. gracilis, the smallest species, is 2° high, with lance-ovate sharply ser- 

 rate leaves bright green and smooth, and rather small snow-white flowers, earlier 

 than the rest, often forced in greenhouses ; filaments forked at the top. 



D. cren^ta. Commonly planted ; a tall shrub, rough with the fine pube- 

 scence, with pale ovate or oblong-ovate minutely crenate-serratc leaves, and 

 rather dull white blossoms in summer ; the filaments broadest upwards and 

 with a blunt lobe on each side just below the anther. This is generally cult, 

 under the name of the' next, viz. 



D. scabra, with more nigose and rougher finely sharp-serrate leaves, and 

 entire taper-pointed filaments : seldom cult. here. 



6. HYDRANGrEA. (Name of two Greek words meaning water and vase;. 

 the application obscure. ) Fl. summer. 



* Cultivated from China and Japan : house-plants N., turned out for summer. 

 H. Hort^nsia, Common Hvdkangea, is very smooth, with large and 

 oval, coarsely toothed, bright-green leaves, and the flowers of the cyme nearly 

 all neutral and enlarged, blue, pni-ple, pink, or white. 



» * Wild species, on shadij hanks of rivers, Sf-c., but often planted far ornament. 

 Styles mostly only 2 : flowers white, the sterile enlarged ones turning green- 

 ish or purplish luith age, persistent. ■ ' 



H. quercifdlia, Oak-leaved H. Stout shrub 3° - 6° high, very leafy, 

 downy, with oval .5-lobed large leaves, and cymes .clustered in oblong' panicle, 

 with numerous sterile flowers. Wild froni Georgia S., hardy N. in cult. 



H. radi&ta, called more fittingly H. nIvea, having the ovate or some- 

 what heart-shaped pointed leaves very white-woolly beneath, but smooth and 

 green above ; the flat cyme with a few enlarged sterile flowers round the mar- 

 gin. Wild S. of Virginia. 



H. arborescens, wild from Penn. and HI. S., rarely planted, is smooth, 

 with ovate or slightly heart-shaped serrate pointed leaves green both sides, the 

 flat cyme often without any enlarged sterile flowers, but sometimes with a full 

 row round the margin. 



7. PARNASSIA, GRASS-OF-PAENASSUS. Wild on wet banks; 

 the large white flower handsome, in summer and autumn. ^ 



P. Carolini^na, the only common species, both N. & S., has the scape or 

 stem 10-2° high, bearing one clasping leaf low down, and terminated with a 

 flower over 1' broad, the many-veined petals sessile, with 3 stout small sterile 

 filaments before each. 



P. pall^Stris, scarce on northern borders, is small throughout, with several 

 slender filaments before each few-veined petal. 



P. asarifdlia, along the Alleghanies S., has rather- kidney-shaped leaves, 

 and petals narrowed at base into a short claw ; other^vise like the first. 



8. HEUCHERA, ALUM-ROOT, the rootstoek being astringent. (Named 

 for a Gorman botanist, Heueher.) Wild plants of rocky woods, chiefly W. 

 and S. along the middle country ; the leaves rounded heart-shaped and more 

 or less lobed or cut, mostly from the rootstoek, often one or two on the taU 

 stalk of the panicle. Flowers mostly greenish, in summer. ^ 



